Since the Hornets made the decision to let their general manager Rich Cho go a few weeks back after another underwhelming season and missed postseason, rumors have been swirling that former Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak was the top candidate for the job.
That interest was a reality as Kupchak was reportedly offered the job by Charlotte over the weekend.
The Charlotte @hornets have formally offered their GM post to Mitch Kupchak and are confident they can soon seal a deal with the longtime former Lakers executive, according to league sources.
— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) April 2, 2018
Kupchak’s tenure and final years at the helm in Los Angeles didn’t end well with some of his final decisions being signing Timofey Mozgov and Luol Deng to huge contracts in the summer of 2016 and acquiring Steve Nash and Dwight Howard in a failed super team attempt four years before that, but he won multiple championships as the Lakers GM and is worthy of another opportunity based on his resume.
He would be walking into one of the toughest cap situations in the NBA though, as Kemba Walker only has one year left on his extremely affordable, four-year, $48 million contract and he has the following contracts on the books that give the Hornets almost no ability to be moved and little flexibility to restructure the roster in general:
Nicolas Batum (three years, $76,695,651 remaining)
Cody Zeller (three years, $43,415,730 remaining)
Marvin Williams (two years, $29,093,750 remaining)
Michael Kidd-Gilchrist (two years, $26,000,000 remaining)
Dwight Howard (one year, $23,819,725 remaining)
We’ll see if Kupchak is able to work some magic for a team that sorely needs it, if he ends up accepting the job.
