Can The Hornets Handle Lance Stephenson?

The NBA's Eastern Conference is undergoing a sea change in the wake of LeBron James's decision to leave Miami for Cleveland. A series of high-profile player moves have turned conference on its head—there's no real favorite as of yet in the race to make it to the Finals and lose to the Spurs. Welcome to the Inscrutable East, our offseason rundown of the teams that matter.

Lance Stephenson is an odd, often irritating player. He will hide in his opponents' huddle, just to aggravate them and piss off their coach. He will blow in the best player in the world's ear, because he thinks it gives him an edge. He will slap his opponent in the jaw, when the ref isn't looking. He is also a guy who, at the age of 19, allegedly shoved his girlfriend down a flight of steps.

Those sins are obviously varying degrees of mostly harmless to horrifyingly awful. The last one, in particular, is something for which some NBA fans will simply never forgive Lance. It makes sense, as many people find it hard to root for people who are alleged to have done anything so evil. Nineteen is old enough to know better, but it is possible that Lance, now 23, is smarter and more mature than the guy who allegedly thought it was OK to not just push someone he presumably cared about down a flight of stairs, but then allegedly "grabbed her and hit her head on the bottom step." Getting into the complicated relationship fans have with flawed—sometimes deeply flawed—athletes is an issue for a different time.

I'm here to look at how Lance fits on his new team, the Charlotte Hornets. Despite his troubles, both on-court and off, Stephenson is one of the best young guards in the league. He's a defensive bulldog who gets under the skin of his opponents. He's a bully on offense, incredibly strong for his size and position. This strength aids him in getting to the basket consistently. Lance was legitimate edge case for inclusion on the East squad at last year's All-Star Game. He can hit right corner three pointers with a very good degree of accuracy, while his shooting is a little wanting elsewhere. Still, he's 23 and likely still improving as a shooter and he provides Charlotte with a secondary ball-handler and playmaker alongside Kemba Walker. He can also be counted on to buoy Charlotte's bench unit with his dribble drives and the opportunities they will create for himself and his less offensively gifted teammates. On the court, Stephenson is a tremendous asset, and the Hornets just nabbed him for a cut-rate price—$27 million over three years—with a team option for the final year.

Off the court, it gets a little murkier. Stephenson was reportedly the primary reason for the Pacers' implosion over the second half of last season. He was obviously bitter about being, in his view, snubbed from the All-Star Game and he was in a contract year, looking for his first big payday after arriving in the league as a low-salaried second-round draft pick. He often played like a guy trying to prove something, in a way that was at times detrimental to his team. The Pacers seemed totally indifferent to whether Lance returned, offering him a take-it-or-leave-it deal of $44 million for five years, which is fairly astounding when you consider how much their already poor offense will suffer without his off-the-dribble creativity and dynamism to break down defenses and get easier looks for guys like Roy Hibbert, David West, and George Hill.

Charlotte also recovered nicely from the departure of Josh McRoberts to Miami by nabbing Marvin Williams, who capably played the part of a small-ball, floor-spacing power forward this season in Utah. Williams isn't the playmaker that McRoberts is for his teammates, but with Stephenson in the fold, that's less of a concern.

The Hornets were aggressive this offseason, as they clearly sought to build upon their feel good playoff story from last year. Before moving on Stephenson, Charlotte threw max money at Utah's Gordon Hayward, a player who is not much better than Stephenson, but would have come without the question marks. Still, in nabbing Stephenson, Charlotte has weakened one of their main conference rivals, significantly upgraded their roster, and further thrown the Eastern Conference into the chaos that began with LeBron's departure from Miami. Let's see how it all shakes out.

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