Brandon Miller scored 18 points (7-21 FG, 3-14 3PT) in Charlotte's 110-103 season-opening win over Brooklyn on Oct. 21, just days after signing a five-year, $209 million rookie-scale extension — the largest in franchise history. The Hornets won without starting guards Kon Knueppel (hamstring) and Coby White (calf), getting 21 points from Grayson Allen, 20 points and 11 rebounds from Naz Reid, and 19 from Dennis Schröder.
The Hornets are pushing to end a 10-year playoff drought after a 44-38 season and a play-in loss to Orlando. Front office traded LaMelo Ball and Miles Bridges in the offseason and rebuilt around Miller and Knueppel. Miller's extension signals he is now the franchise centerpiece, and the deep supporting cast was the story in Brooklyn when he cooled off after a 17-point first half.
Brandon Miller scored 18 points in Charlotte's 110-103 win over Brooklyn on Oct. 21, though the post's "at home" detail is off — that game was in Brooklyn. The Hornets' home opener came Friday, when Miller was held to 6 points in a loss to Atlanta.
ESo the Hornets gave Brandon Miller two hundred nine million dollars, and his first game after signing... he shoots three for fourteen from deep.
SFantastic start. Though they did win.
EThey did. One-ten to one-oh-three over Brooklyn, and the weird part is the Hornets took that game without their two starting guards.
SWait — they didn't have Knueppel or Coby White?
EBoth out. Grayson Allen drops twenty-one, Naz Reid gets twenty and eleven... this Hornets bench is deeper than people think.
SOkay but here's my issue with the Miller extension — he's now the face of the franchise, right? And he had a huge first half, then went cold. In Brooklyn.
ECold is one game. He's coming off back-to-back twenty-point seasons. The Hornets haven't made the playoffs in a DECADE. They had to pick somebody.
SBut they traded LaMelo and Miles Bridges to build around Miller and a rookie. That's a lot of faith in a guy who just shot twenty-one percent from three.
EYou don't build around a player for one night. You build around a six-eight forward who can score at three levels. And they WON the game.
SThey won because of the supporting cast. Which, fine, that's what good teams have. But Miller has to be the guy in the fourth quarter, and he wasn't.
EHe told DAZN afterward it's about fighting adversity and focusing on the controllables. That's exactly what a young franchise player should say.
SI just want to see him take over a game. Not disappear for the entire second half. The extension says he's a superstar. The contract says that. The box score doesn't yet.
EFair. But the box score in Brooklyn also says the Hornets are one-and-oh. For a team trying to end a ten-year drought, I'll take that.
STrue. And speaking of things you have to take — CNBC is reporting that American embassies are tightening security as Iran threat warnings intensify ahead of the midterm elections.
EThis one's out of nowhere. The report says a DNI memo claims Iran is in the advanced stages of planning attacks on Americans.
SNow, that's the claim — it hasn't been independently confirmed. But if the intelligence community is shuffling embassy security, something real is happening.
ERight before an election. You can't separate the timing from the politics. Iran always rattles sabers when America's distracted.
SBut if the threat is genuine, this is about protecting Americans overseas, not a talking point. The two things can both be true.
EThey can. I'd just like to see more than one outlet on it before we treat it as confirmed.
SAgreed. We'll keep an eye on it. Different world entirely — let's switch gears.
SAnd on Wall Street — the AI funding fears are real enough. CNBC's investment club is saying they're rotating out of AI stocks into defensive plays.
EDefensive. That's the word that makes me nervous. It means the people who were pounding the table on AI a year ago are now looking for a corner to hide in.
SIt's not a crash, it's a rotation. Some of the AI names ran too hot. Money moves to the boring stuff — utilities, staples — while the sector sorts itself out.
EI still think the long-term story is intact. AI isn't going away. But the easy money came out. The pretenders will wash out next.
SAnd that might be the healthiest thing for the sector, honestly. A little fear keeps people honest.
EQuick one before the break — there's a fan account out there saying a weird thing: that they're listening to a white man named Eddie Long on the phone, and there's eight billion people on the planet.
SI don't know if that's a compliment or an insult, but it's definitely a sentence.
EIt's Saturday night on X. That's the culture. We'll be back.