{"id":134322,"date":"2025-04-14T15:39:45","date_gmt":"2025-04-14T19:39:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=134322"},"modified":"2025-04-14T15:39:45","modified_gmt":"2025-04-14T19:39:45","slug":"hornets-veteran-taj-gibson-gives-surprising-take-charlotte","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/04\/14\/hornets-veteran-taj-gibson-gives-surprising-take-charlotte\/","title":{"rendered":"Hornets Veteran Gives Direct Take About Charlotte"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After finishing 19-63, the Charlotte Hornets have missed the postseason once again. Additionally, they have now missed the playoffs for the ninth consecutive season. Despite their lackluster season, the Hornets have a bright future and a lot to look forward to. So much so, that veteran big man <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/g\/gibsota01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-04-14_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Taj Gibson<\/a> recently spoke about the Hornets and called Charlotte &#8220;special.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Taj Gibson thinks more free agents should want to come to Charlotte<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a gold mine. This is special.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>(\ud83c\udfa5 <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WillCEudy?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@WillCEudy<\/a> )<\/p>\n<p><a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/UmD8aEqYlx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/UmD8aEqYlx<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TheDunkCentral\/status\/1911798926425849927?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 14, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;This is a gold mine. This is special. Fans come every night. I watched this place get packed consistently&#8230;if we won more, oh man, forget about it. They always showed up, they&#8217;re always encouraging, every game. Even last game of the season, it was special. Even though we couldn&#8217;t pull it out, it was a special game. This is a special place to play,&#8221; Gibson said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Gibson signed with the Hornets last offseason. In his first season in Charlotte, the Brooklyn native appeared in 37 games, starting 11 of them.<\/p>\n<h2>Hornets Veteran Taj Gibson Gives Direct Take About Charlotte<\/h2>\n<h3>Changes Coming in Charlotte?<\/h3>\n<p>Earlier this year, the Hornets traded <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/w\/willima07.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-04-14_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mark Williams<\/a> to the Los Angeles Lakers for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/k\/knechda01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-04-14_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dalton Knecht<\/a>. The trade ultimately fell through, however. Last month, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/03\/19\/charlotte-hornets-reexplore-major-trade-mark-williams-offseason\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">NBA insider Marc Stein<\/a> reported that the Hornets may re-explore a trade involving Williams in the offseason.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMark Williams is obviously back with the Hornets after the Lakers rescinded their February trade for the Charlotte big man, but some rival executives expect the Williams trade market to be re-explored this summer. The Hornets have tried to shut down similar speculation about star guard <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/ballla01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-04-14_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LaMelo Ball<\/a>, but the reality remains that Williams, Ball and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/m\/millebr02.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-04-14_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Brandon Miller<\/a> have managed to appear in the same game just 18 times over the past two seasons,\u201d Stein wrote.<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/03\/06\/nba-insider-blockbuster-charlotte-hornets-lamelo-ball-trade\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">HoopsHype&#8217;s Michael Scotto<\/a> also reported that the Hornets may have interest in trading star guard LaMelo Ball.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI touched on this with some of the other guys, and some executives around the league are looking at it too. If you were willing to part with Mark Williams\u2014who\u2019s 23 and pretty good, though he has some injury concerns\u2014the next logical thing would be to also look at LaMelo Ball. He\u2019s on a max contract, and they\u2019re not winning, obviously, for the foreseeable future. For LaMelo, he wants to win. This is now going to be his fifth season. How much longer does he see himself there? That\u2019s what I\u2019ve been told. And I\u2019ll say this, Matt\u2014at the end of the day, I also think not being an All-Star and not winning affected him. He had the numbers on paper, but Charlotte\u2019s record hurt his chances,&#8221; Scotto said.<\/p>\n<h3>The Last Word<\/h3>\n<p>With the season now over for the Hornets, there is a lot to monitor this offseason. As it stands, there is no guarantee the Hornets will make any trades. However, it is still interesting regardless. After failing to make the playoffs once again, the Hornets are a team to keep an eye on over the summer.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a9 Paul Rutherford-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After finishing 19-63, the Charlotte Hornets have missed the postseason once again. Additionally, they have now missed the playoffs for the ninth consecutive season. Despite their lackluster season, the Hornets have a bright future and a lot to look forward to. So much so, that veteran big man Taj Gibson recently spoke about the Hornets [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4631,"featured_media":134325,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,7,2,62,3],"tags":[673],"class_list":["post-134322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-hornets","category-featured","category-nba","category-news","tag-taj-gibson"],"modified_by":"Elie Deglaoui","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4631"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134322"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":134330,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134322\/revisions\/134330"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}