The Hornets held their last practice of a trying season on Tuesday. With one game left at Houston on Wednesday, the Hornets are 36-45 and will miss the playoffs for the first time in three years.
New Orleans is 33-39 since Bower, who is also the club's general manager, replaced Byron Scott as coach.
When asked to summarize his first season as a head coach, Bower noted that the Hornets were a winning team and in playoff contention before three-time All-Star Chris Paul went out with a meniscus tear in his left knee. That was one of three injuries -- including a sprained ankle and torn ligament in his middle finger -- that will have sidelined him 37 games when the season ends.
Meanwhile, fellow starter Peja Stojakovic will have missed 20 games, mostly because of a lower abdominal strain. The Hornets have gone 4-15 without Stojakovic, a perimeter sharpshooter whose presence tends to open up opportunities inside for teammates.
"We went from five games under .500 on Nov. 14 (3-8) to .500 on Jan. 4 (16-16) to five games over .500 on Jan. 29 (25-20)," Bower said. "During that stretch, (Paul) missed games -- eight games during that time. At that point we were also competing for the sixth spot in the playoffs."
Paul's torn meniscus forced him out for 25 games after an overtime loss to Chicago on Jan. 29.
After that, Bower said, "Things changed, we lost some games. This past month has been difficult with Chris being out or not performing to his normal levels, Peja missing a significant number of games. When you look at what our record is without him on the floor, you see his impact."
The Hornets have won only five of their last 22 games.
Bower has worked for the Hornets since 1995, starting with the scouting department and working his way up to general manager in 2005. He also spent one season as an assistant coach in 2003-04 under Tim Floyd, who Bower hired as an assistant this season when owner George Shinn fired Scott and asked Bower to take on the dual role of general manager and coach.
Last summer, Bower oversaw one of the better drafts in the NBA. The Hornets selected point guard Darren Collison late in the first round and worked a second-round trade with Miami to acquire former LSU standout Marcus Thornton.
Thornton has averaged 14.4 points and started 16 games, while fellow rookie Collison has started 36 games because of Paul's injuries and has averaged 12.3 points and 5.6 assists.
However, Bower's job security is anything but clear. Hornets majority owner George Shinn, who founded the club and in 1988, is negotiating to sell his shares to minority owner Gary Chouest, a south Louisiana businessman.
Chouest has declined to discuss the pending transaction publicly or his vision for the club going forward.
Bower, meanwhile, said all the focus on the Hornets' recent slide has overshadowed not only how competitive the team was when key players were healthy, but the progress the current coaching staff made with young players like Collison and Thornton, and the number of close losses the Hornets had down the stretch.
"This coaching staff, my assistants and the players have put an awful lot into this entire thing. That's gone unnoticed and has been overlooked by this frenzy of the last two weeks," Bower said. "Our record is 33-39 since we took over, with Chris missing (36 games). ... That's pretty competitive. I think that's pretty respectable and that's something that -- that is our record, that's this team's record, OK? It's not my record, it's this team's. And I think the impact of all of these things have been handled by each player without excuses. We haven't always played well, but we've always tried."
Bower then added, "The things that we've learned throughout this year are going to be lessons that we all look at and learn from and grow from and are part of future success. And I think the development of our players is something that is a part of all this as well, so that's about all I have to say."
With that, Bower walked off the practice court, perhaps for the last time as the Hornets' coach.
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