On today's show, we borrow a premise from The Athletic's John Hollinger to identify the Charlotte Hornets' most important "hinge player." This is the non-star player with a wide range of outcomes whose performance could be the difference between a 20-win and a 30-win season. We make the case for several candidates, with Tre Mann leading the list as a potential Sixth Man of the Year contender. We also explore the unique impact that rookies Ryan Kalkbrenner and Tidjane Salaun could have if they are ready to contribute right away.

Then, we turn our attention to the latest win projections from Kevin Pelton of ESPN, who has the Hornets finishing 13th in the Eastern Conference with 28.5 wins. We examine his reasoning, which is rooted in the idea that "things can't go as badly as last season" with injuries, plus the addition of Collin Sexton and the expected development of Brandon Miller. We discuss whether this projection is fair and look at how injuries to other Eastern Conference teams could open the door for the Hornets to potentially outperform that number and make a surprising jump in the standings.

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