Hornets Star Says Gill Deal Will Hurt Team Larry Johnson Upset Charlotte Reacquired Guard From Seattle; Says Team Chemistry Threatened
The guest of honor at a ground-breaking Thursday, Larry Johnson saved his best dig for the Charlotte Hornets.
The Charlotte power forward said trading Hersey Hawkins and David Wingate to the Sonics for Kendall Gill undermines team chemistry and could cost the Hornets victories next season. However, Johnson went out of his way to say he didn’t have personal problems with Gill that would keep the two from working together.
“I don’t think the deal was a very good deal,” Johnson explained. “I didn’t believe it was done. They know the love we had for each other here. You play a lot better when you know the guys you play with don’t do this and don’t do that. I don’t know whether we have that now.”
Johnson says the loss of Hawkins, Wingate and Kenny Gattison (to the expansion draft) breaks up one of the happier locker rooms in the NBA. Johnson says the Hornets front office undervalues team chemistry.
“You don’t think the (NBA champion) Houston Rockets have the best talent in the game, do you? … They (play) Chucky Brown,” Johnson said. “But they had one of the most potent chemistries in the league last season.
“We had that last year and I don’t know that we have that now. This is not about the player who’s coming in; this is about the two players we let go. I’m a professional, and I’m going to go out to win every night. But it makes it a lot easier to do that if you have chemistry.
“I was looking at (Minnesota Twins star) Kirby Puckett last week saying that he doesn’t think there’s any loyalty anymore in pro sports.”
Johnson said he didn’t like the Hornets exposing Gattison to the expansion draft, but he could understand it because the team was forced to expose four players. The trade, Johnson said, was harder to accept because the Hornets pursued it.
Johnson said Hornets management consulted with him when it first looked into reacquiring Gill. Team officials later told him the deal was unlikely.
“From what I heard … I thought they wouldn’t do it,” Johnson said. “Then I had to see that they did it on TV.”
While Johnson criticized the trade, he made a point of rejecting speculation he and Gill couldn’t co-exist. Johnson and Gill got into a shoving match the first time the Hornets played Seattle following Gill’s 1993 trade to Seattle.
“This is not a situation where I have a certain hate of a player, where I don’t like a player,” Johnson said. “I don’t think (Gill) needs to call me or apologize to me. The deal is done and I don’t hate any player.”
The Larry Johnson Basketball Center will be a 12-court facility in Charlotte. The 30-acre park is scheduled to be completed in six to eight months.
Johnson said the park near his home in inner-city Dallas kept him out of trouble as a kid.