To say the Hornets have stumbled out of the gates is something of an understatement. We've been handled by the Hawks, Lakers, and Rockets thus far. It's a long season, and things will surely start to even out a little as we get into December and January. That said, this team could use a little shake up. Some thoughts on our problems and some potential solutions:

Peja Stojakovic

He's one of the game's best pure shooters, nobody denies that. His biggest challenge is facing off against physical opponents. We've seen tough defenders throw him off time and time again- Bruce Bowen blasted him to smithereens in the playoffs last year, and Ron Artest did it again on Saturday. All that leads me to postulate: why not start James Posey against the more physical perimeter defenders?

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The fact that he walked to the locker room under his own power was encouraging. And reports say he wanted to come back out, but the team held him out for precautionary reasons. I made this GIF of the exact moment of impact- it's obvious that he just tried to change direction very awkwardly, and the foot doesn't bend all the way. The twist of the ankle isn't parallel with the ground, like Greg Oden's injury on Tuesday night.

From WebMD:

Putting on my doctor's cap: that looks like a mild right ankle inversion. It probably was a pretty painful injury, but he's now listed as day-to-day. I doubt he misses Saturday's Opener.

Easily the biggest question mark of the year, going in. How many games would Peja play? Was Ryan Bowen seriously going to be the first forward off the bench? How about that Vinicius guy? (note: Julian Wright is under SG's. Mo-Pete said he felt lonely :) Well, Peja stepped up big time, and the first forward off the bench ended up being someone not even on the preseason roster- Bonzi Wells. A game-by-game look at Predrag and Gawen, via Hollinger Game Score. As usual, there's a 5 game moving average (yellow line) and high, low, average, and standard deviation Game Score up top. Click for larger:

Best Game: November 6th @ LAL. Peja had some terrific games, but this is an easy call. He drilled a franchise record 10 threes on just 13 attempts, fueling a franchise record 21 assist night for Chris Paul. And even though he was getting assisted, these weren't easy triples; he drilled 'em with hands in his face, after pump faking defenders off their feet, with tall, lanky defenders like L. Odom running at him at full speed. He finished with 36 points in 38 minutes as New Orleans crushed Los Angeles in Staples.

Trends: Consistency defined. Peja's season seems to be marked by two very obvious trends. For the first half, there's a definite increase in Game Score until a sudden drop. Then, he heated up once more, just in time for the playoffs. With an average Game Score of 11.2, he finished just a lick below Tyson Chandler (11.9) for 4th on the squad.

Best Game: March 19 vs. HOU. Bonzi Wells got a chance to show Houston what they'd given up, and he made the most of it. With 25 points on 9 of 12 shooting, he burned the Rockets, including outscoring them single-handedly in the 4th quarter. The Houston game was part of a great stretch of basketball for Wells; the game before, he scored 19 vs. Chicago, and the game after, he recorded 8 thefts vs. Boston.

Trends: Wells peaked in that aforementioned stretch, only to collapse badly as the season went on. The yellow line above tells the entire tale- going into the playoffs, Bonzi was playing some bad basketball.

Well, the end of the How'd He Do series is imminent. All the major players are in the books, with only Ryan Bowen, Rasual Butler, Chris Andersen, and Mike James left to review. So this is probably a good time to stop and check out what's gone down thus far. Thanks to all of you that voted, you've helped create the first ever batch of Hornet approval ratings!

• Melvin Ely (41%)
• Morris Peterson (67%)
• David West (95%)
• Bonzi Wells (58%)
• Peja Stojakovic (91%)
• Jannero Pargo (70%)
• Hilton Armstrong (34%)
• Tyson Chandler (97%)
• Julian Wright
• Chris Paul (100%)
  

As I mentioned in some of the comments, I removed '1' ratings for a few players. Seriously, Peja did not have a 1 season. Neither did David West or Tyson Chandler. Get over New Orleans' success, bitter fans of other teams.

The top 3 were CP (duh), TC, and DX in that order. Peja was 4th, and General Pargo overtook Mo-Pete for the 5th spot. Bonzi probably caused the most division. Some people (myself) had him high, while others pegged him as a 1. Ely and Armstrong didn't score well, but hopefully they will both rebound excellently. Finally, I'm surprised that Tyson finished higher than DX. Interesting.

The How'd He Do is the first part of @tH's player review series for the summer. Next up are some funky graphs and a best game thingamabob (huh, the spell check recognizes this??). The draft can't come soon enough...

Peja's turn. So far: Bonzi Wells 55%, David West 94%, Morris Peterson 68%, Melvin Ely 37%. Now let's take a look at Predrag, three point shooting extraordinare.

Positives: Shot the lights out, stayed healthy, barely missed becoming the second 45%+/200 3PM+ shooter in NBA history (Glen Rice), nearly matched his career high with 231 total threes and shot 44.1% from three, easily outclassed his much hyped fellow bomber Ray Allen (180 3's on 39.8%), spaced the floor extremely well allowing the TC-CP pick and roll to enjoy great success, career high and NBA high .929 from the stripe, often guarded opposition's best wing with some success (LeBron, Redd), Peja Heads probably the highlight of the season

Negatives: Shut down in the playoffs by Bruce Bowen, terrible footwork on defense, forced up shots in games where he got limited touches, got blocked on way too many inside attempts (14% of his "inside" looks were rejected)

My Grade (1 to 5): 5, Explanation: Without Peja's three point ability, you could easily make the case that Paul wouldn't have posted the ridiculous numbers that he did. Even on non-Peja plays, his presence on the floor was enough to keep extra defenders from hounding CP. He was shut down by Bruce Bowen, but seriously, it's Bruce Bowen. Bowen is one of the NBA's premier defenders, if its dirtiest, and he's shut down premier scorers in the past. I really think Peja's getting too much flack for this. Other than that, he filled his role to the max. 231 3PM in 77 games? Don't tell me you wouldn't have sold your soul for that before the season started.