Why Charlotte, just why?

Refusing to offer Kemba the super max could have been a ballsy first step in a rebuild, a demonstration that Charlotte has finally gotten a handle on how to value players in the NBA and a willingness to take one bad season for the sake of longer term success.

Then they decided that Rozier was worth $19 million a season and basically shot to hell any possibility of gain from losing Walker.  The only silver lining is that Rozier is generally bad and there is a good chance Charlotte ends up with a top pick this year.  There really isn't much else to talk about for Charlotte as they boxed themselves into this position years ago, so lets talk about how that happened.

5 years ago Charlotte managed to squeeze out a playoff appearance with a very young team, their mins leader was a 23 year old PG and they had 3 top 7 picks under 22 years old on the roster.  Their veterans weren't even that old, outside of a 29 year old center with bad knees that is.  The trouble is that the 29 year old C and the 23 year old PG were the only strong players on the team.  Their not old veterans also weren't very good, and neither were their high draft picks.  After Al Jefferson's injuries and decline sank their next season Charlotte actually went out and made some savvy moves.  They landed vets coming off down seasons and on expiring contracts and churned out a 48 win season, then they promptly forgot why those guys were available in the first place and quickly overpaid them. 

Batum was available because he had largely peaked as a 23 year old and signed a 4 year deal right after.  3 years later he hadn't matched that productivity, let alone exceeded it, and Portland was ready to move on.  Marvin Williams lacked any elite skills and was looking to be a good fit as a role player when he wound up in Charlotte.  Neither of them should have been treated as irreplaceable, or even difficult to replace,  rotation pieces but they were and their contracts ended up killing the one skill that Charlotte management had demonstrated over the previous 3 seasons.  With no cap space left and no real growth from their high draft picks they couldn't improve their team and the not at all unexpected regression of Batum and Williams made them weaker. 

Some of this is more obvious in retrospect but the loss of Kemba this season ought to have signaled a full reset, and the opportunity should have been taken to start accumulating long term assets.  Instead they have committed a large chunk of money to a team with no upside and with no real reason to believe that money will ever be positively effective for them.