Hornets’ Michael Kidd-Gilchrist out 6 months after shoulder surgery, report says

The 22-year-old recently signed a four-year, million contract extension with the Hornets. He was seen curling off the screen late in the game’s second quarter when he fell to ground after being hit by a foul move courtesy of a Magic player.

Not for the future in Charlotte, after the dents had been hammered out of that mangled jump shot.

According to Wojnarowski, Kidd-Gilchrist’s injury will hurt the team. Per National Basketball Association Stats, Charlotte posted a defensive rating of 104.1 without MKG, which would rank in the early 20s among other teams; with Gilchrist, Charlotte shifted into one of the league’s best defenses, with a defensive rating of 96.3 in 1587 minutes of playing time.

The Hornets are looking to build on their 11th-place finish last season, which may not be too hard in a weak Eastern Conference.

New Miami Dolphins coach Dan Campbell believes his underachieving team needs to show more aggressiveness that stops just short of dirty play, and he looks forward to breaking up a few fights in practice.

The news is a major blow to the Hornets’ playoff hopes. Kidd-Gilchrist posted an average of 10.9 points and 7.6 rebounds in 55 outings for Charlotte while also making his presence felt on the defensive end. He also played for Team US back in July at the Pan American Games in Canada.

With this, Kidd-Gilchrist’s 2015-16 season is pretty much done even before it started. But he did it, and I was really happy for him. Without him in the lineup to help prevent or cleanup messes, the Hornets have a big adjustment.

Batum is a very good player coming off a down year, Al Jefferson is still effective on the left block, and Kemba Walker might be inconsistent, but he’s still an effective guard. In fact, with Kidd-Gilchrist slated to miss the entire year, there might not be a single plus defender on the entire roster outside of Nicolas Batum, whose defense was always overrated to begin with.