Todd Thomas
There is no worse place for an NBA franchise to be than hopeless. Since their inception into the league in 1988, the Charlotte Hornets have usually languished at the bottom of the Eastern Conference, suffering endless embarrassment, both on the court and otherwise. From getting sold and being moved unceremoniously to New Orleans in 2002, to coming back and playing in Charlotte under the questionable moniker of the Bobcats, the team has, more often than not, disappointed.
More recently, the team underachieved again under the ownership of revered basketball royalty Michael Jeffrey Jordan. The 6-time Finals MVP often sat looking down listlessly from his perch in the skybox at the hapless boys in teal, perhaps more focused on his next Nascar venture than on which new offense they should be running.
The last 15 years of Hornets draft picks reads like some kind of zombie-filled basketball graveyard: Cody Zeller, Noah Vonleh, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Frank Kaminsky, and James Bouknight to name just a few. All deeply underachieving players, many of whom are not even in the league anymore. And speaking of horror, shout out to Kidd-Gilchrist for having perhaps the scariest shooting form that the league has ever seen. Assuming Dwayne Wade’s ignominious sculptor Omri Amrany can still be found, perhaps he could also create a statue of MKG’s shooting form and place it in a gallery so that future generations can admire in shock and awe how he was chosen at the #2 pick.
And all this is even before considering that in 2018 the Hornets drafted and quickly traded superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who is not just one of the best young players in the league, but also an MVP candidate and will likely remain that way for the next 10 years or so.
But after a few years of shakeup with ownership, roster and head coach, the Hornets are beginning to enter in the sometimes dangerous world of hope. New Hornets coach Charles Lee is young, enthusiastic, and an engaging personality. He’s a former champion as an assistant coach with the Bucks in 2021 and again with the Celtics in 2024. His reputation around the league is overwhelmingly positive and through the early portion of the 2024-2025 season, the Hornets sideline has looked at the very least, more focused and under control. Even with nagging injuries to multiple players, Coach Lee has sometimes cobbled together even some of the most dubious roster rotations into at least a few surprising victories.
After years of swinging big in the draft and more often than not striking out, last year’s #2 pick Brandon Miller was averaging 21/5/3 earlier this year before his season-ending wrist injury. During last year’s draft, the Hornets passed on the tantalizing temptation to select highly-touted G-league player Scoot Henderson, and as it currently sits, Miller is still by far the better choice. At least in a small sample size, he looks like one of the very best players in that draft. Further, Miller’s unfortunate injury could allow the Hornets to dive more quickly into the tank and pray for the lottery balls to fall their way in a 2025 draft that appears stacked at the top with Cooper Flagg, Ace Bailey and Dylan Harper.
And then there’s LaMelo Ball. While injuries have been a notable part of his career as well, Ball is still a potential superstar, despite his frequent absences and more than a couple of bad shots per game. Averaging a career high of 29 points, Ball is still only 23 years old and chipping in an impressive 7 assists and 5 rebounds as well. The spark he brings to any game is undeniable and has given the Hornets something close to an actual identity.
It is too early to make the call on young draft picks like the oft-injured Mark Williams and the VERY young 19 year old Tidjane Salaun, but the Hornets do seem to have found real promise. It has only been 43 games thus far, and the Hornets are still at the bottom of the Eastern conference, but something seems different about this Charlotte organization. Whether briefly boosted by the presence of a new coach or simply due to more naivety from a fresh-faced roster full of youth, hope has entered the Hive again and brought the bounce back to Buzz City.
