It's not that Thursday's events were unexpexted. It's that relieving Byron Scott of his duties as Hornets head coach came sooner than anyone ever imagined.

What did the main players have to say about the change?

Hugh Weber, Team President

** "At the end of last season, we talked about the need for change. We talked about the need that doing the same things and expecting a different result was insanity. We sat down by Byron Scott, our coach, and walked through what that change would look like. And there was commitment to that change. We went out and found the players that we felt would help us compete at an elite level, and yet, the team is broken. Not operating as a team. Not executing as a team. And certainly not playing to the abilities we feel this team can play.
 

** “Why Jeff is the right person right now is two fold – not only is a talented developer of talent, a coach, a tactician, but he is also the one who is the architect for this team. If you want to talk about accountability and talk about being held accountable for the results this team was built to get, nobody wants it more than Jeff.

“For us to have an immediate impact this season, which is important to us, we felt a change of someone who has been involved with the process the entire time, who has worked arm in arm with the staff, who understands these players and their needs was the right choice."

** "Accountability is key. I told Jeff the Genie is out of the bottle. Nobody can say he doesn’t have the right players for the right reason. Jeff has hand selected the team. We like the idea now that Jeff will be held accountable for results.

** "All of our goals are specific and much more granular than you think. That’s part of the issue. Some of what is being defined was a big problem and yet, there was no specific direction on how to fix it. We believe there are  actually very fixable, very tactical, very specific goals that are not being achieved."

** “It goes back to when our performance last year. You see habits forming. You don’t want to see those habits reformed when you bring in new guys. You see team performance. You’re hopefully through training camp and you see signs of hope and glimmer, but again, the body of work has to come together in a way you see progress. We see that gap actually growing. We saw frustration throughout the organization, not just from the coaches but the players and Mr. Shinn."

** “We said last year it was critical to us to make sure we were all committed. Byron has a rich history with this team. He’s a good leader. We felt if we could make some recommitments to the programming and the style and prinples of this team, we wouldn’t be here today."

Jeff Bower, General Manager and Head Coach

** “As an organization, we had key areas we were looking at from a results standpoint and the results we were getting weren’t matching what we had hoped for and how we were getting there was as important and led us to the need to make change."

** “I accept responsibility for the results up to this point and from this point forward. We collectively set out a plan and right now we’re not satisfied with how the plan has been executed. It’s my job to change that."

** “We believe the personnel has the ability to perform at a much higher level than it has been performing. We believe the gap that needs to be filed to reach that point is obtainable. We also believe we weren’t making that type of progress to closing that gap."

** “We’ve got to be more successful and more consistent in a number of areas, starting with our defensive transition and our pick-and-roll defensive schemes and execution from a defensive standpoint. And offensively our ability to play a game at a consistent and steady tempo with a lot of movement and a lot of action and activity to occupy defenders. Those are the three areas that will be a major point of emphasis for us."

** “Nine games into a season obviously is one thing. But the numerous practices we watched and the effectiveness of our team and growing from them are all areas that we feel will need to be different. Given that, plus our preseason play, we were looking for something to point to to say that it was changing.

"The only thing you can do is look at the tapes of the games and search for steps and what progress was being made. We weren’t comfortable with what we were seeing and the amount of progress that ws taking place."

David West, Forward

** “Initially I felt a little bad. I’ve been with coach the longest. I know the type of guy he is and the fact he wanted to be successful and make us a successful basketball team. At the same time, as a professional athlete and an adult, you really can’t let emotions be a part of this situation knowing it can help us out."

** “A lot of guys, you want to respect the position of the head coach. I think that’s the right thing to do. But I’m not going to say that he and I were philosophically always on the same page in terms of how we approached the game."

** "For some reason, things we were doing weren’t working. I don’t think it was in terms of personnel even though the personnel changed. I just thought our approach needed to be different."

** “Pride is a dangerous thing. We’ve tried in terms of conversations amongst the team. I think there was a sense that a few guys weren’t trusting in terms of what we had in our system and our ability to know what we were going to get every single night from our system."