A few weeks ago, P.J. Hairston was facing trouble for an assault incident that took place in a pick-up game where the Charlotte Hornets’ rookie allegedly punched a high school player during a heated exchange.
Now, days later, Hairston has ended his first NBA Summer League experience as the Hornets’ leading scorer. In 7 summer games, the trigger-happy Hairston averaged 18.3 points per game including games when he put in 21, 22, and 27 points.
Against summer league competition, the former North Carolina cast-off showed his scoring ability, but his performance came with a huge asterisk. In putting up team high scoring numbers, Hairston found it necessary to shoot an average of 17.1 times per game while hitting only 30% of his attempts, including a paltry 18-51 from behind the three-point line. In fact, the deep-shooting Hairston managed to get up two more treys than shots inside the arc.
In his first summer game outing, the 6-5 Hairston nailed just one of his ten three-point attempts and struggled throughout the Las Vegas schedule from inside the arc as well.
“Shot selection is something I definitely need to work on,” Hairston told a Charlotte reporter after one summer league contest. “If I hit a couple I feel like I need a heat check or something. And that’s when I realize I need to be patient.”
Indeed Hairston’s sporadic shooting and lack of shot selection sense have drawn the ire of many of the Charlotte faithful. He had a propensity to pull up deep behind the line but showed very little interest in stopping anyone from scoring on the defensive end. And his antics - he picked up a technical foul in one summer game - have not endeared him to the Hornets’ front office.
Coming into the summer session, Hairston was resolved to show his entire package.
“I wanted to show that I could pass the ball,” Hairston said. “Because I’ve heard that people say I can’t pass the ball well. So I showed I can share the ball a lot and bring the ball up the court, do different things I normally don’t do.”
However, PJ showed very little offensive diversity and tallied only a handful of assists throughout his summer outings.
Hairston’s body of work is brief and difficult to measure - it is summer competition after all - but he was able to lead his Hornets’ squad to the Summer League semi-finals. Time will tell, however, if he is simply too one-dimensional to last long-term in the NBA.
But for now, with the newly acquired Lance Stephenson set to don a Hornets’ uniform, Charlotte fans will be content to put up with the hometown Hairston and let him shoot freely from deep real estate - as long as a few of those rainmakers find the bottom of the net. If not, all bets are off in Buzz City.