After one game, it's difficult to make any sweeping judgments about the Charlotte Hornets. This is especially true after beating the Brooklyn Nets on the road without Kon Knueppel and Coby White.
But there may also be nuggets of truth buried in the first game of the season. It can be hard to tell now, but there were so many takeaways from game one that will undoubtedly bear themselves out over the next 81 games.
They're currently viewed as overreactions, but one NBA insider's game-one overreaction might not be an overreaction. It might be a prescient observation.
Bleacher Report's Greg Swartz's overreactive takeaway was that Brandon Miller will struggle without LaMelo Ball. His strugglers in the opener were shocking, and I wrote about how ugly it truly was after the contest.
"The franchise just handed Miller a five-year, $209 million extension to help reward him for a season where he averaged 20.2 points on 38.3 percent shooting from deep," Swartz wrote. "How much did Ball factor into Miller's success, however?"
This isn't a new take. It was something many of us were extremely concerned about when the Hornets traded Ball. Kon Knueppel hasn't played yet, but there is some similar concern that his numbers will suffer.
"This [performance] comes a year after Miller made 56.1 percent of his twos and a healthy 40.3 percent of his threes off passes from Ball," Swartz noted.
Ball was able to easily set Miller up, but there isn't someone on the roster capable of replicating that. Miller has to create more for himself, and so far, he's been unable to. That was true last year when Miller was on the floor without Ball. However, all is not lost.
Miller's overall stat line is terrible. Not only was he not the best player on the floor like he absolutely should've been, he was one of the worst. The Hornets won in spite of him, not because of him. But early on, Miller was electric.
It looked like the first-option version of Miller was going to be a great ballplayer. He started out with 17 points on 7/12 shooting. He was on pace for a career night before things totally fell off a cliff. But that performance is obviously in there.
Miller needs to get better, and I expect that the return of Coby White and Kon Knueppel will help, but it's certainly plausible that the fourth-year wing will simply suffer from the loss of LaMelo Ball all year.
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