Hornets send Brandon Miller to the bench, again

The Charlotte Hornets are expected to start Naz Reid, Coby White, Grayson Allen, Sion James and Moussa Diabate at the Lakers on Tuesday, which leaves their leading scorer, Brandon Miller, on the bench.

It is an odd five on the face of it. Miller plays more than anyone on the roster, 31 minutes a game, and scores 20.6, yet the starting group is built around players who play far less. Coby White has appeared in only five games and averages 18 minutes in them. The Hornets are 3-7 over their last 10 games, and the injury report explains a good part of how the lineup got here.

Confirmed lineups arrive about 30 minutes before tip-off, so the five could still move. For now it allows for everyone on the injury report.

Miller is the one name that does not fit. He leads Charlotte in minutes and points after 10 games, and he is also the first man off the bench: the rotation list reads Miller at 31.0, then Grant Williams at 16.9, Royce O'Neale at 15.9 and Ryan Kalkbrenner at 15.2. A sixth man playing nearly twice as much as the next reserve is not a normal bench.

The rest of the five is closer to what you would expect. Naz Reid averages 29.8 minutes, Moussa Diabate 29.0, Grayson Allen 27.3 and Sion James 26.1. White is the outlier among the starters, with the fewest minutes of the group by some distance.

The quality of the minutes is worth keeping in view too. White is shooting 31.5% from the field and 14.8% from three, and he is averaging 9.8 points and 3.6 assists in his five games. Those are modest returns for a starting guard, and they sit beside a Hornets side that has won three of its last 10.

The minutes list tells the story in one column. Brandon Miller averages 31.0 minutes, the most on the team, and he is not in the starting five. Dennis Schroder is second at 29.9 and is out until 25 Nov, so he cannot be in it either. Of the top two minutes-getters, neither is a likely starter on Tuesday.

Williams has played one game, so his 16.0 minutes is a one-game figure; the rotation list projects him at 16.9. Take him as a name in the bench order rather than a settled role.

Whether Miller should start is a harder question than the minutes make it look, because the shooting splits cut both ways. He leads the team at 20.6 points a game, but he is making 35.6% of his shots and 26.0% from three. Allen scores 5.4 fewer, 15.2 a night, and does it on 46.1% from the field and 47.2% from three in 27.3 minutes.

That is the case for either choice. It is a team whose volume scorer is its least efficient shooter among the top three, and whose most accurate scorer already starts.

That frames Tuesday's game at the Lakers. Charlotte will lean on Miller's scoring off the bench and on Allen's shooting in the first five, with Reid, the second-leading scorer at 17.3, in the middle of it.

The injuries shape everything above. The five players on the injury report are Kon Knueppel, Dennis Schroder, Michael Ajayi, Kylan Boswell and Hannes Steinbach, all listed as out. Only two have a return date.

Dennis Schroder, out until 25 Nov, is the loss that bites. He has played nine games at 29.9 minutes and averages 4.9 assists, the most on the team, though he is shooting 36.4% from the field and 20.0% from three. With him gone, creation falls to White at 3.6 assists, Allen at 3.3 and James at 2.9. That is a lot of passing duty for a starting group with three guards who are not natural playmakers.

Kon Knueppel, not back until 12 Dec, has played one game. Ajayi, Boswell and Steinbach have no return date listed.

Up front, the two bigs do different jobs. Moussa Diabate pulls down 9.5 rebounds, the most on the team, and shoots 61.0% from the field in 29.0 minutes. Ryan Kalkbrenner gets 5.4 rebounds in 18.6 minutes and makes 70.0% of his shots, with 1.3 blocks a game.

Neither shoots from deep: both are at 0.0% from three. Reid, who starts alongside Diabate, is the big who stretches the floor at 35.4%, and he rebounds 8.5 a game as well. Diabate starts and Kalkbrenner is fourth off the bench on the rotation list, so the minutes follow the rebounding.

Put together, the group expected to start for Charlotte is a five that allows for everyone on the injury report rather than the five that logs the most minutes. Miller leads the bench, followed by Williams, O'Neale and Kalkbrenner, and with Schroder out until 25 Nov the backcourt is as thin as it will be.

The Hornets' results over the last 10 games are 3-7, and they travel to Los Angeles with that shape. Confirmed starting lineups across the league come about 30 minutes before tip-off on Tuesday, and Charlotte's will show whether Miller stays on the bench.

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