Stockholm syndrome is a condition which causes hostages to develop a psychological alliance with their captors as a survival strategy during captivity. These alliances result from a bond formed between captor and captives during intimate time together, but they are generally considered irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims. 

Local media, national media, everyone is literally telling us how bad the Hornets have done these past couple of years and more specifically these last couple of months. We know this. They have told us we have every right to be pissed. We also know this.

They may have arrived late to the party on discussing it but well, let’s be honest, we aren’t exactly relevant… until we screw up.

We lost Kemba. But it’s not just that. We lost him because we seemingly didn’t have a plan. we lowballed the offer. In December you should’ve known the ballpark of what Kemba wanted and if you knew it was too high THEN YOU SHOULD’VE TRADED HIM. You knew he’d reject that number… So why didn’t you trade him? The all-star game? That’s the rumor and if that’s the case, you are stupid. Beyond stupid. One of the stupidest to ever operate a professional sports team. Did you think he’d take the 160? If so then you didn’t know your team and couldn’t even figure out the wants and needs of the best player you’ve had in 20 years who works under your roof. If that’s the case, you’re ignorant. There’s only two possibilities here. You are either ignorant or stupid…

Then you over pay a guy when most of the fanbase just assumes our strategy was to suck for a couple years and get the young guys some burn. He’s a solid player but it just comes across as not knowing whether or not you want to shit or get off the pot

it doesn’t help that when Mitch speaks on the topic he can’t even properly get a message across that explains his reasoning for not trading Kemba or claiming that Rozier is a “lottery pick”… whatever that means. He says things like “I’m not sure we could’ve done better a year ago” when discussing the Kemba situation. Leaving fans speculating that he didn’t try. We won’t even dive into the other quotes of him defending himself from criticism over the signing that left fans scratching their heads more than trying to figure out where the airports were during the revolutionary war.

And yes where the hell is MJ? We just lost our best player of all-time and he is nowhere to be seen. Wasn’t in Charlotte when Kemba cleared his locker, wasn’t even in the US when conversations were going on and sends us a message likely typed by his assistant that literally said nothing……….nothing actually would’ve been better.

This isn’t an article about why MJ is one of the worst owners in the league. This isn’t about how he is the constant between bad management moves from Cho to Mitch and before them. Because there really isn’t an argument that he is a good owner. We can discuss Frank to Vonleh to Dwight to this Kemba situation etc. why he’s bad and if your argument is that “we have a team” (we got two teams before he came on the scene) for him being a good owner then that’s pretty sad. I mean all he did was green light the rebrand that fans forced down his throat and took the organization kicking and screaming to the purple and teal finish line.

This is more of a discussion that FANS DESERVE TO BE ANGRY.

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Here’s what leads me to the meat of all this.

While a lot of fans are expressing their anger there are still fans defending this organizations every move. No matter how dumb it looks and no matter how many mistakes we’ve watched there are those that dismiss the litany of faults as whining and complaining.

Despite losing your best player of all-time, despite being the only team in the east to have never made the Finals, despite being one of 3 teams to never make conference finals, despite not making it past the second round, despite it taking 14 seasons to win a playoff game we should just be happy we have a team…

They defended Batum for years, ignored the writing on the wall and called him a “glue guy”. They defended Kaminsky’s play and dedication to Charlotte until Kaminsky left the damn building.

They wipe Jordan of any guilt because the team makes money and they say there is no proof even though every credible source in the NBA from Woj to Lowe source him as being a major root of the disfunction. if you remember, the fans handed him the olive branch of the rebrand and gave his team a second chance.

They dismiss all listing of problems and the overwhelming issues as people complaining and I’m here to say that the fans owe this team no benefit of the doubt until they have proven and earned the fans trust. Until they compete this fanbase has every right to second guess and scrutinize every decision because if you are keeping count at home they are wrong WAYYYYY more often than they are right.

We watched what this organization did the last time the fans were apathetic and didn’t hold them accountable and I’m guessing many of these people weren’t fans yet so they don’t understand the value of holding the team’s feet to the fire.

For some reason they view fans being critical as them being disloyal and I’m here to tell you that I’d rather have a fanbase passionate enough and that care enough to complain than one that suffers from Stockholm Syndrome of this organizations tactics and sympathizes with “how hard it is to manage a team” and rationalizes this mediocrity with a “let’s just wait to see” how it plays out this time so we can discuss another bad decision in hindsight.

I want that building to be afraid of how fans will react. Not a building that measures their success on whether or not Jordan makes his money.