In a column I wrote in November, I made a very simple suggestion that I thought would help the Hornets solve the woes they were experiencing at the time: play their rookies.

Well, as of today, the Hornets may just start doing that. It was announced earlier today that New Orleans dealt veteran shooting guard Devin Brown to the Chicago Bulls for back-up center Aaron Gray in a move centered around the Hornets’ current financial situation (this is the second move the Hornets have made in the last month with money being the only motivation, with the Hilton Armstrong to the Kings deal for cash being the other).

With Brown gone, rookie shooting guard Marcus Thornton got the first start of his NBA career last night against the Portland Trail Blazers. Prior to last night, Thorton’s career high in minutes was 38, which came during the stretch of games that Chris Paul missed, in a game against the Miami Heat. In that game, Thornton hit nine of his 19 shots and five of his seven three point attempts on his way to a career high 24 point performance.

In this game, with Paul and David West as the primary offensive options, Thornton played in 35 minutes, and made eight of his 12 field goal attempts, which included three-of-five from deep, for a total of 19 points.

Obviously I do not think that Thornton will be able to shoot 67% from the field every night and he shouldn’t be expected too, he’s a rookie and, quite frankly, those numbers are unheard of for a guard. But, what I think he can offer is the ability to spread the floor with the long ball, hit open mid-range jumpers (if you watch DeMar DeRozan you can see him putting that together nicely), and create his own shot off the dribble.

So far this season, Thornton has been shooting above 50% from four spots on the court, the two corner three’s, a straight away 15-footer and anything within immediate range of the basket. Those corner three’s are obviously the most important, and with more playing time, we could see an increase in numbers on all of the other three point spots, too.

Marcus, who’s current percentages are 42/35/75, will only have one problem if he is able to stick his shots like he has the ability to do. That issue will be the comparisons to Ben Gordon. The way Thornton plays, which is, catch and shoot, dribble and shoot, or dribble and drive, there will rarely be any games where he puts up more than five assists or five rebounds, though the occasional lucky rebound may fall into his lap. My response to that: Devin Brown wasn’t doing much of that either, and with a distributor like Chris Paul and bigs like Emeka Okafor and David West, why would he be expected to do those other things?

Of course, the caveat to that is whether or not Thornton is hitting his jump shot. If his three’s are rimming out and his mid-range game results in a lot of bricks, then there is no reason to continue to play him if he isn’t creating for his teammates and rebounding the basketball like fellow rookie James Harden does. Harden can shoot the three, but he can also get his own shot, create for his teammates and create contact in the lane (I think Thornton is a good finisher at the rim, but he is not someone you expect to go to the line once he gets to the cup). Those differences between Harden and Thornton is the difference between Harden being a lottery pick and Thorton being a second round pick.

With Brown gone, Thornton is listed as the #1 shooting guard for New Orleans and I really hope that he is able to keep the spot long enough to prove he can stick in the NBA as a shooter and a scorer, something the Hornets have needed for a while. I can see Jeff Bower coming up with a starting line-up that features CP3 playing alongside another rookie in Darren Collison, who is a better defender than Thornton but is not as good of a shooter, but I think he understands that the offense Marcus brings is something the Paul can maximize with the attention he draws on his drives to the cup, which will open up wide open three’s for Thornton from his favorite spot on the court, the corner three.