Brutal loss in Detroit shows how much Hornets have bottomed out. What should they do?

We’ve officially hit the point in the NBA calendar where rumors and speculation begin an arching ascent, creating a hysteria that wafts throughout the league often uncontrollably.

It was about to be revved up anyway since the NBA trade deadline is speedballing toward a likely crazy conclusion. Friday’s reported trade demand by Brooklyn’s Kyrie Irving served as a piece of kindling, sparking what could turn out to be a huge conflagration with massive ramifications.

That’s honestly what many fans of the Charlotte Hornets are thinking about. While the Hornets (15-39) are immersed in games that don’t mean all that much really in the grand scheme of things, and are instead playing for ping-pong balls in the upcoming Victor Wembanyama sweepstakes, the more pressing matter is what to do with a roster that’s currently just not good enough as constructed.

Not that another piece of evidence was truly required, because the Hornets’ record already places them among the league’s worst. But Friday night’s 118-112 loss to Detroit at Little Caesars Arena provided yet another indicator of just how far removed they are from a season ago, when they tied for the fourth most wins in franchise history since pro basketball returned to Charlotte.

Something has to be done and the Hornets may need to shake things up before the Feb. 9 trade deadline. It’s been quite the challenge for coach Steve Clifford, and he hasn’t sugar coated the truth with his players in a trying season.

“With NBA guys, the one thing you can’t not do is be honest with them,” Clifford said. “This is not the team in July that we thought we’d have. They know that. And No. 2, we’ve had — I don’t know where we stand — but we are probably 28th, 29th or 30th in health.”

Actually, only four teams have amassed more missed games due to injury than the Hornets this season. They’re up to 164 now and still counting. It’s contributed to their downfall, but also can’t be used solely as an excuse.

Injuries aren’t the reason they’re limping home 0-3 on their swing through the Midwest. The Hornets’ maddening issues go deeper than that and their endless loop of losses usually feature the equivalent parallels.

“We’ve got to make sure everybody comes in ready to play, the same thing coach says,” Dennis Smith Jr. said. “We need a lot of guys to play good. We don’t have a lot of margin for error, so it’s having the right mindset, game-plan discipline. We definitely could have won this game. I’m not going to say it’s easy games or nothing like that. But we’ll win the ones we deserve to win, and I don’t think we deserved to win these.

“It’s definitely frustrating.”

Here’s the thing with the Hornets: They don’t have a true style, at least not one that will breed success. It was visible even in the closing moments against the struggling Pistons (14-39), when the Hornets didn’t stick to any kind of offensive principles. Defensively, they also got carved up in similar fashion to the tune they’ve experienced all season.

On too many occasions, their games mirror something expected at a local YMCA, not an NBA arena. The flaws are magnified in crunch time, spotlighted with every turnover, rushed shot or lackadaisical reach-in defensively. That style is far from effective, and until the Hornets each figure that out, it’s going to be a major sticking point.

“You have to have a way to play that when you play in the biggest games at the end of the year, you have a chance to win no matter who you are playing,” Clifford said. “And it’s balanced basketball. You can’t be really good at defense and not good at offense, although you have a chance with that.

“And you can’t be really good at offense and bad at defense. That never works. So that part, I think we are slowly getting there. What we have to establish is this is a way that a winning team plays.”

Kind of like they did in their last victory, which came against Miami on Sunday. However, those performances have been too far in between, leading to speculation the Hornets could be sellers at the deadline.

Given their situation, how Charlotte’s front office handles the coming days should provide some insight into what to expect over the final 22 games following the All-Star break. It should be an interesting final two months because the Hornets’ schedule is loaded with mostly home games after their road-heavy slate, and it lightens up quite a bit. The Hornets boast the second-easiest schedule after the All-Star Game festivities in Utah.

But having 14 of 22 outings in their own digs could also be a bad thing for the Hornets if they decide to break it down and ship off a veteran or two, setting the stage for them to go younger to gauge what they have moving forward heading into an important offseason.

Meanwhile, they are essentially relegated to focusing on the smaller things like incremental improvement in a campaign that’s already lost and devoid of few excitable moments.

“It’s certainly been a season where we’ve had a bunch of guys go down with injuries and it hasn’t gone our way,” Gordon Hayward said. “You’ve got to try to look at the growth part of it, though. We are a young team and so individually we’ve got to figure out ways, myself included. As long as I’ve been in the league, (it’s) just focus on growth and get better to help us.

“It certainly is frustrating how it’s gone, but that’s kind of how it is.”