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00:00 Welcome to the latest episode of The Stinger. I'm James Plowright of allhornets.com. You
00:10 can find me on Twitter @British_Buzz. And for this off-season edition, I wanted to record
00:17 a quick solo podcast, just to try and outline what I think is going to become a consistent
00:23 theme in the next 12 months, the next 12 years, maybe. And that is, I have this feeling that
00:32 everyone around the NBA kind of wants Brandon Miller to fail. And I've titled this podcast
00:39 episode "Brandon Miller vs. Everybody," because the way this media narrative has built against
00:46 Brandon Miller, from pre-draft, during the process, after summer league, it's just honestly
00:52 like nothing I've ever seen for a number two overall pick since maybe, I don't know. I
01:01 can't even remember when. So let's go back over some of the content that I'm talking
01:05 about here. First up, coming out of high school, Brandon Miller was the 11th ranked prospect
01:11 in the country. He was a McDonald's All-American. He was a well-known name, but let's not pretend
01:16 that he was someone who anyone had at the top of their draft boards. People had him
01:20 somewhere between six to 15, maybe in their mock drafts, heading into his freshman year
01:27 of college. And he clearly outperformed that. He was, I think, player of the tournament
01:32 in the SEC. He was a McDonald's All-American. He was a shortlist for national player of
01:36 the year. He was all first team in the SEC. I think he was one of the only players in
01:41 the country, maybe to, in history, I mean, to actually put together the list of accolades
01:47 that he did. And that put people on notice a little bit. You know, Brandon Miller really
01:52 rose up and I don't think a lot of draft analysts were expecting to be talking about Brandon
01:59 Miller as a top three pick during the draft. Now let's compare that to Scoot Henderson.
02:04 He is a top high school recruit, leaves high school early to join the G League. And he
02:10 spends two years playing for the G League Ignite. And all we are told for two years
02:16 is Scoot Henderson. That's him, right? This is the guy who every team really wants. You
02:22 know, the year when you're looking at Dyson Daniels, Jaden Hardy in the draft, you know,
02:27 they weren't the one who scouts really liked. It was Scoot Henderson. He was the guy, him
02:32 and Victor Weminiyama, this generational draft class. Brandon Miller was never, ever mentioned
02:37 as part of that for years building up to the draft. But then fast forward to this year
02:42 and Brandon Miller put up arguably just an impressive statistical season, irrelevant
02:49 of different competition. But compared to Scoot Henderson, if you look at the statistics,
02:53 it's fair to say he kind of stagnated in the G League this year. I'm not saying that he
02:58 wasn't maybe taking it a little bit easy. That's certainly possible. But just comparing
03:03 the two, I don't think it's unreasonable to look at the two profiles of players and to
03:10 think that they were worth comparing. But the buildup of, you know, by admitting that
03:20 Brandon Miller is the better player at this point is basically saying that you've been
03:26 wrong for two years. This is what analysts, analysts, scouts, media, guys who've been
03:31 on TV, been on podcasts, writing articles. They're admitting that for two years, we haven't
03:36 been paying enough attention to Brandon Miller. And that Scoot Henderson is, you know, I was
03:41 wrong to say Scoot is ahead. And I just don't think a lot of people want to do that. So
03:46 from that moment, that's where I think people straight away, they're always going to look
03:50 at everything glass half full with Scoot Henderson and glass half empty with Brandon Miller,
03:56 because it reinforces their prior beliefs. So they start paying attention to that stuff.
04:02 And even the NBA itself, you know, Scoot Henderson played for the G League Ignite, part of the
04:07 NBA's development program, the highest drafted pick who played for the Ignite in history
04:12 of the NBA. The NBA wants Scoot Henderson to succeed. The G League Ignite were turned down
04:19 by Brandon Miller. Brandon Miller went and visited. He said, no, I'm going to Alabama.
04:24 Straight away from an NBA media narrative, they want Scoot Henderson to succeed. They
04:29 want him to be one of the faces of the league, because that is a great product to show future
04:35 players to join their academy system, which is part of the Ignite. So I think that's one
04:41 thing you really have to pay attention to. All these people linked to the NBA, the PR,
04:47 they want Scoot Henderson to be the guy. On top of that, you have these little stories,
04:51 right? You know, Scoot Henderson working with Steph Curry. That's the kind of thing that
04:57 gets fans very excited because, you know, Steph Curry is going to turn Scoot Henderson
05:02 into a great shooter. Well, I'm sorry, it just doesn't work like that, folks. Yes, look,
05:07 it is great that Steph is probably one of the best teammates of all time and can be
05:11 a veteran leader. But let's not pretend like Dwight Howard, he went to Kareem's camps.
05:17 He didn't become a post player overnight. He spent a lot of time with Kareem. This idea
05:24 that people can just like pass a skill set and what they were as a player on to the next
05:29 generation, it's video game movie stuff. It's not real life. But those kind of things, I'll
05:36 admit Scoot Henderson's media team, his PR team have done great. And that when you then
05:44 compare that to Brandon Miller with the off court issues, Brandon Miller is just followed
05:50 by allegations. The off court issue that happened at Alabama this season where he was driving
05:55 a car that had a gun in it, which was eventually used to murder a young mother. That's a scary
06:04 thing to talk about. If you're part of the media, if you're an analyst, it's a lot easier
06:09 to sit on the other side of the fence for that. If you're 50/50, if you've got a prior
06:13 belief, a prior piece of intel on one person versus the other, it's very easy to go the
06:20 other way. Like why do you want to go and ride and push for the guy who has gray area
06:27 around involvement in a major crime? That's just not something I think a lot of people
06:33 wanted to do. Not when, like we said, we've had these two years of buildup of hype, Scoot
06:38 Henderson is the guy. But you look around the league, point guards taking the top five
06:46 of the draft, they don't often have this like massive impact on their teams. John Moore
06:53 was one, Derek Rose was obviously the number one overall pick. He was fantastic in for
06:57 his injuries. But let's not forget that these smaller guards, and I know Scoot is big and
07:02 thick, but the smaller guards who are questionable at shooting do have a limited value in the
07:06 NBA. What is every team like? If you take the Scoot/Brandon Miller argument out of this,
07:12 what is everybody looking for? They're looking for 6'9" wings who can shoot, defend and pass.
07:18 That is everything that Brandon Miller can do. Now, as soon as you insert the names in
07:22 there, people would change their view on that. But if you asked like 90% of NBA analysts,
07:29 they would agree with that philosophy that everyone is looking for those wings. And let's
07:33 not forget before the draft, Adrian Wachanowski, one of the most LinkedIn keyed up people in
07:40 the whole of the NBA. In fact, he is the most LinkedIn, I'll say it, he is. He went on Ryan
07:45 Russo's podcast and said, and I quote, "For most teams, if they could get a go to two,
07:52 it would be for Brandon Miller." Yet the whole NBA media sphere has painted Charlotte Hornets
07:58 like they're the only team in the NBA who would ever consider taking Brandon Miller
08:03 instead of Scoot Henderson. And I'm not saying by the way that that is the right or the wrong
08:07 decision, but I'm just talking about the narrative here. The narrative arc, which is that the
08:11 Hornets are stupid and that they're going to regret this decision for the rest of the
08:18 franchise history, which they very well could be. But why do we just pretend that other
08:24 teams weren't going to do the same thing? I'm sure there are other teams who had Scoot
08:29 at two, I know Portland are one of them, but there are 28 other teams out there and we
08:33 don't really know what their outcome would be. I read some very good reports that San
08:40 Antonio were extremely high on Miller. And let's just imagine that, let's say Charlotte
08:44 got one and San Antonio were at two and they selected Brandon Miller instead of Scoot Henderson.
08:51 Do you think they would have been stuck with the vitriol, the negative comments, their
08:59 own fans? Do you think they would have rolled their eyes at the franchise as much? I don't
09:05 think so. I think they are giving Charlotte less credit because of their track history,
09:15 which is perfectly fair. But I just don't like that we pretend like the Charlotte Hornets
09:21 were the only single team out there ever wanting to take Brandon Miller. He is an elite prospect.
09:27 What he can do at his age, his size, his skill set is probably the best single prospect,
09:34 I would argue, that has ever been drafted by the Charlotte Hornets. As a prospect at
09:39 the time, Lamella Ball was fantastic. But now I would say Lamella is probably on par
09:44 with Brandon Miller as a prospect. Not in terms of players. Right now, Lamella Ball
09:50 is better than Brandon Miller. Don't get me wrong. But as a prospect when they were drafted.
09:54 Brandon Miller is right up there and easily could have been the number one pick in the
10:00 last couple of drafts or been in contention for. Now, from a media point of view, I kind
10:07 of understand. You look at the personalities of the two, Scoot Henderson, you see him interviewed,
10:12 he speaks like a veteran. He answers every question like he's watched 100 interviews
10:20 over the last five years and knows exactly what the interviewer wants. He handles himself
10:25 fantastically. He speaks well. We've heard his work ethic is exceptional. And that's
10:32 great. And to contrast that, you've got Brandon Miller, saying Paul George was the greatest
10:38 player of all time, going on TikTok, pretending, not pretending, who knows that he didn't know
10:43 Chris Middleton was. And all these little things, they just feed into this narrative
10:49 arc that Brandon Miller doesn't know what he's doing. While you've got Scoot Henderson
10:54 over here who is like, if you could cut someone out and get them to answer interview questions,
10:59 you'd be the perfect person. None of that matters. How people handle the media, it can
11:08 give you sometimes a window into them, but ultimately none of it matters. You can think
11:14 of some of the greatest players who don't handle the media well, aren't interested in
11:20 the media. You know, Joe Dudley, the best interview I've ever had with any NBA player.
11:26 He was like a role play rotation person, but you speak to him and you'd be like, wow, this
11:30 guy gets everything. Like he answers all the questions. He's incredible. He's engaging.
11:35 And you know, he's becoming a coach and he's going to be a great teammate. Doesn't necessarily
11:40 always mean you're going to be a great player. But again, it's these little things that roll
11:47 into people's prior beliefs. And let's look at some of these. Brandon Miller played not
11:55 his best at start, but definitely got better as he got into Vegas. And I think it's perfectly
12:01 fair to say that Brandon Miller outplayed Victor Wembenyama. Why wasn't that storyline?
12:07 Really? The storyline was, oh, don't worry about Victor. He'll be fine. Rather than storyline
12:12 being, Brandon Miller just outplayed a generational talent. Now, yeah, there were struggles in
12:19 other games. Absolutely there were. He had shooting struggles, but he was also on probably
12:25 the worst summer league team I've ever seen the shuttle Hornets put together. And we talk
12:31 about how fit and situation is so important during the draft. And then when we analyze
12:36 summer league, we just seem to forget about that. This short shuttle Hornets summer league
12:41 team, I think we're averaging 12 assists per game as a team when Brandon Miller was playing.
12:50 Like the next lowest team is at 16. That is unbelievable how little that ball was moving.
12:56 And Brandon Miller was one of the few players actually doing the right thing. And you look
13:00 at the Brandon Miller stats at the end of this, you compare them to Jason Tatum, to
13:05 Paul George's stats as freshmen at summer league after that in their rookie seasons,
13:10 they're comparable. Jason Tatum, so Brandon Miller's at 15 points, Jason Tatum, 18, Paul
13:16 George, 15. Brandon Miller's rebounding was slightly less than George and Tatum's, but
13:23 right up there. And this doesn't take into account minutes either. His playmaking, far
13:29 surpassed Tatum and George. Brandon Miller averaged 3.4 assists, Tatum was 1.5, George
13:34 2. And his turnovers were way down compared to Paul George. Paul George's 4.8 turnovers
13:41 a game, Brandon Miller's at 2.6, pretty much the same as Jason Tatum. You look at those
13:48 summer league stats and yes, we all would have liked it to be more efficient. We would
13:51 have liked him to maybe be a little bit more alpha mentality, but he's not going to be
13:57 someone that you just give the ball to like Luka Doncic and everyone stands around in
14:01 corners. There's very, very few players like that. And the hardest thing, I think it was
14:05 actually said in one of the Hornets broadcasts in summer league, one of the hardest things
14:09 he said, I'm trying to remember who said it now. It was a coach who came on to speak during
14:14 one of the games and I can't remember who it was now, but it was an NBA head coach.
14:20 And they asked him, what is the hardest thing that young prospects have coming into the
14:25 game right now? That they have to adapt to when they get to the NBA. And their answer
14:29 was playing without the ball. Go through high school, go through AAU, everyone's playing
14:36 the ball in their hands. That's what everyone is used to doing. How can you impact the ball
14:40 when you don't have the ball in the hands? You look at the Warriors, the way they move
14:43 the ball, the Nuggets, the way they move the ball. It is, you know, moving it quickly,
14:49 not holding the ball, playing as part of a system, not just playing as individuals. And
14:55 that's what Brandon Miller exactly showed in summer league. He showed that he wasn't
14:58 just a ball stopper. If you watch any Shaden Sharp, like Shaden Sharp was like, look great
15:04 for Portland, but he looked like a guy who was like, give me the ball and move out my
15:09 way. Which I know is cool because it's what MJ used to do. And it's at times what LeBron
15:14 and Kobe have done, but we are moving into a different era of basketball now. There is
15:19 less isolations, one-on-one scoring, team defenses are much smarter. And I think Brandon
15:27 Miller fits into a situation where he's got a point guard lamella ball perfectly next
15:31 to him. I think it fits him really well. So it's important to try and picture this, that
15:39 yes, he's going to be able to help off ball. He's going to be able to help on ball, give
15:43 some scoring. Guys who can shoot a 6'9" are much more valuable. Guys who can shoot a 6'3".
15:52 And I know everyone will say, we don't draft for fit, but what we don't know, and we'll
15:57 never know this. Did the lamella ball want to play with Scoot Henderson in the backcourt?
16:03 They can be pals at Puma, right? They can have a great relationship. You're telling
16:09 me that the lamella ball doesn't have an ego and he should. Every NBA all-star has an ego,
16:15 right? And I hope the lamella ball has an ego. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but
16:21 you know, bringing in when you're trying to sign him to a maximum five-year contract extension,
16:26 bringing in a guy who is, let's face it, plays the same position. Yes, they can play together.
16:30 They can, it's possible. But they do play the same position in 90% of scenarios, but
16:35 not if he landed in Charlotte. And we will never know, but did lamella ball want to play
16:43 next to Scoot Henderson? And if he didn't, if he'd said to the team, you know, I'd be
16:48 cool with either, but I'd prefer to have a 6'9" wing next to me. What would you do as
16:54 the GM of the team in that scenario? I think it's a difficult question. And I think it's
17:01 something that is easy for us all to sit here and say, well, I would have taken him and
17:06 told lamella not to worry. But if you've got these guys close on your board, then it's
17:14 the real world, folks. That does matter. It does. And the team are never going to say
17:20 it, you know, and we're never going to ever find out the truth, but it's something that
17:24 you've got to remember that you can never rule out here. Something else about Simile.
17:30 Scoot Henderson played half a game and yeah, he was 5 of 13 shooting, right? Which is not
17:36 great, but I watched the half and I can't lie. He looked fantastic, right? He did look
17:45 a more impactful and a better player than Brandon Miller. It probably was more impactful
17:52 than Brandon Miller in any half. I would say just like featuring all over the game on both
17:56 ends, maybe on par with like the Spurs game for Brandon Miller, which was obviously one
17:59 of his better ones. I'll say that, like, I've got no problem admitting that he looked fantastic.
18:06 I know it was 5 of 13. Watch the game. Okay. He was absolutely everywhere. Both ends, creating
18:12 for the scoring for himself, getting to wherever he wanted. He looked masterful out there.
18:18 But it doesn't matter. It's a Simile game. Think about all the guys who've looked great
18:23 over Simile teams over the years. Josh Selby was a guy I remember. He averaged, I don't
18:32 know how many points, looked fantastic at Simile. You look through like the all NBA
18:37 Simile teams and the Simile MVPs from over the years. You look at the guys who scored
18:43 the most points in the game. Anthony Randolph is one that comes to mind. I think Marcus
18:49 Sasser obviously had a 40-point game in the last thing of Simile. Let's go back through
18:55 the MVPs of Simile. Cam Thomas, Brandon Clark, Josh Hart, Lonzo Ball, Tyus Jones, Kyle Anderson,
19:05 Davion Mitchell, Glenn Rice Jr., Jonas Valanciunas. All perfectly fine NBA players. I don't think
19:18 a single person I just listed on there has an all-star appearance between them. Before
19:24 that, it was a great run, okay, from '09 to 2012. Blake Griffin, John Moore, Damon Lillard.
19:30 Okay, there's an impressive group for you. I can't argue with that. But the standard
19:37 of Simile has gone up significantly in recent years with more and drafter players, more
19:44 players coming back from Europe. So I think that is something that you need to take into
19:49 account. Overall, I'm not saying that the Hornets were right or wrong on this decision.
20:02 I don't know the answer to that yet. Nobody does. The media will have already decided,
20:08 because they're moronic, that it was right or wrong. They will butt jokes, make jokes
20:16 for years about what Charlotte did. I don't think it's fair. I think you have to... Well,
20:28 it might be fair. It might be fair in time. But I don't think you can pass such solid
20:33 judgment off now. And anyone that does, you're just making yourself potentially look stupid
20:36 down the line. And then people will rip the team for a decision for three, four, five
20:41 years. And then if they do go wrong, they'll go, "Oh, I got that wrong." And the apology
20:45 is never as powerful as the ribbing of the decision, which lasts for however long. But
20:55 that's pretty much everything I wanted to cover. For Brandon Miller to usurp Scoot Henderson
21:02 in the eyes of NBA fans and the media means that analysts, fans, media need to swallow
21:09 their pride and basically admit that they were wrong. And we know that people won't
21:16 do that until they have no choice to. All right. Thank you very much for listening.
21:23 This is the All Hornets Podcast Network. If you enjoyed the show, please give us a five-star
21:28 rating and review on Apple Podcasts. Check out our work on allhornets.com. And I'll speak
21:34 to you next time.
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