The Hornets held a news conference on Wednesday at the Superdome to announce they had signed forward-center Chris Andersen.
"He was one of my favorite players because of his athleticism and his enthusiasm," said Hornets coach Byron Scott. "He was terrific on the court as well as off the court. He was out of the game for two years and a lot of guys don't fight hard enough to get back. I'm very proud of Bird that he was able to get to the NBA level. We're excited to have him back and he understands that it's going to take a lot of hard work to get back in the position he was in before he was suspended.
"We believe our team is better by signing him. We're getting a great guy who puts his heart and soul into it every night. When he first got to New Orleans, his willingness to do whatever it took to get on the court stood out as well as the hype of person he is. But we have a lot of work to do, and Bird from an individual standpoint has a lot of work to do. But if anybody can get it done and get back to the level of basketball that he needs to, it’s Chris. We're very happy he's back. From that point, we're just going to move forward."
Andersen thanked the Hornets organization for standing by him during his two-year suspension for violating the league's drug abuse policy, and said he thought what the Hornets had accomplished this season is tremendous.
"I respect Byron Scott for all the great things he has accomplished as a player and as a coach," the Bird told the media. "I'm not here to step on anyone's toes. I'm here to help the team and make players better. I'm patient. I know I'm not going in and play a lot of minutes. I wasn't expecting that. I respect coach Scott's decisions..If I have to, I'll run extra sprints at practice, just to prove that I have been what I said I've been doing in terms of working out. I love Byron Scott and it's good to be playing for him again."
Hornets owner George Shinn told Andersen to be patient because Scott has many other players to look after and knows what is best for his team. He told Bird that his time would come and he would shine again as he did when he was the Hornets' most popular player.
Ryan Schwan covers the Hornets for Hornets.com and says the Bees need another big man and the addition of Andersen will elevate the Bees' bench. "It's charitable to call the present big men backups serviceable," said Schwan. "Here are the stats for Ely, Armstrong, Bowen and Andersen (from his last season)/ I'll list Per 48 Scoring, FG %. Rebound Rate (RR) PER and WP48.
"Rebound Rate is a stat that tells you what percentage of available rebounds the player gets while on the floor. PER is a mostly offensive focused rating created by John Hollinger of ESPN, and WP48 is an over-all productivity measure created by Dave Berri of Wages of Wins. A PER of 15 is average and 10 is terrible. A WP48 of O.115 is average. Less than 0 means the player is so bad he actually loses games for the teams he plays for.
Schwan that this chart sums it up. "Even if the two-year layoff hurts Andersen and comes back at 75 per cent of his old self, he's still be better the current backups in almost every phase of the game."
