The subject of the National Basketball Association (NBA) often sees the conversation gravitate towards familiar sub-topics: the Los Angeles Lakers, the MVP race, the New York Knicks, a debate about when Giannis Antetokounmpo will finally be traded, a debate about when LeBron James will finally retire, etc. One reality that has not earned much spotlight – in part because it’s new – is the emergence of the Charlotte Hornets as a threat in the Eastern Conference.
The Stink of the Hornets
The smaller the NBA market, the less likely the media will pay it heed. A team like the Oklahoma City Thunder needs to become one of the best teams in the league, have an MVP on its roster, and win a championship for people to reward it with attention. Otherwise, why should anyone care about the club in Oklahoma City? I don’t write that to be intentionally disparaging. It’s simply the reality.
Enter the Charlotte Hornets. Or, rather, enter the Hornets since about January-ish 2026. Not only is Charlotte, North Carolina, not on anyone’s bingo card as an obvious tourist destination or as a major sports hub in North America, but the franchise has languished near the bottom of the NBA basement for multiple seasons.
In 2022-23, the club finished with a loathsome 27-55 win-loss tally, fitting them in second-last place in the East. That version of the team conceded about six points more than it netted per game. 2023-24 was no better. In fact, it was slightly worse given the 21-61 record and about a minus-10-point differential per contest. How low could the slide go? Try 2024-25, which saw the Hornets tumble to a 19-63 regular season record.
Yes, LaMelo Ball is a good ball handler and one of the better scorers in the game, but other than that, why care? I can recall tuning in to see how the Boston Celtics did on a given night and, realizing they had done battle with Charlotte, was curious to see some of the action simply because I never paid attention to that team.
The Sting of the Hornets
Imagine my surprise when, on March 4th, the Hornets buzzed into TD Garden to play the Celtics on the parquet floor. This should be easy.
No. No, it wasn’t. Hornets 118-89 Celtics.
Kon Knueppel led the way with 20 points, and former Chicago Bull Coby White came off the bench and bolstered his side with a 17-point performance in only 20 minutes. Ball had the worst plus-minus of the starting five players, and he was still a respectable plus-9!
The victory improved the Hornets to a 32-31 record, officially making them an above .500 club. It was but a single game above that critical threshold, but considering the franchise’s fortunes in past campaigns, being a “winning” basketball squad in March meant a lot.
So how are they doing it?
Charles Lee: Winning Culture
Head coach Charles Lee – 41 years young – isn’t a household name in the NBA. That said, if he continues the excellent work he has started with the Hornets, it shouldn’t be long before the masses take notice. Fun fact: Lee’s previous employer was the Boston Celtics, with whom he filled the role of Joe Mazzulla’s assistant in 2023-24, the year the Celtics earned their 18th championship banner.
Although his first full campaign was nothing to write home about (2024-25), things have rapidly changed in 2025-26. Even if the final month of the regular season doesn’t go their way and the Hornets somehow miss the postseason, few can deny that the club has demonstrated impressive improvement on the court.
As of Monday, March 23rd, Lee’s unit is a respectable 37-34 and happily mired in a playoff seeding logjam in the Eastern Conference. To recycle the tired hypothetical “If the playoffs started today…”, Charlotte would at least partake in the play-in tournament, given they sit 10th. In truth, Charlotte has 11 more games left on the schedule and sits only two games out of seventh, currently held by the Philadelphia 76ers.
Seventh and 10th are worlds apart in the context of the play-in tournament. A 10-seed knows it needs to capture two road games. A 7-seed needs to win only a single home game for its ticket to the playoff bracket.
A Swarm of Hornets
The easy name to quote is LaMelo Ball. He’s good, to be sure, but ironically is not putting up quite the same figures as in years past. Make no mistake, 19.7 points per night is a healthy contribution, yet it’s not last year’s 25.2, or the 23.9 of 2023-24, or even the 23.3 of 2022-23 – a season during which he suffered a fractured ankle, which didn’t help 2023-24 either.
Even the assists are not as high as they were a season ago. He currently dishes out 7.1, although in 2024-25 the number was 7.4. Being healthy helps. Ball has stepped onto the court 61 times already, the most since 2021-22 (75 games).
But as they say, it’s a team sport. Coach Lee has tons of roster members playing top-notch basketball.
Small forward Brandon Miller is netting 20.4 points per match through 54 of them, rookie Knueppel hits 19.1, and power forward Miles Bridges tallies 17.3. Including Ball, that’s a quartet of players who make it to 20 points or very near every single game.
Consider also that substitutes White and Collin Sexton only average 19.8 and 22.3 minutes a night, respectively, but work their way to 14.9 and 14.2 points on the board.
Boosting those figures is that Charlotte chucks 42.6 shots from beyond the three-point arc, second-most per game in the NBA. Their success rate is .380, good for third in the association. The club that fires the second-most three-point shots out of 30 squads has the third-best efficiency. Keep in mind that the modern NBA is a shooters’ league and, more specifically, a three-point shooters’ league.
Scoring is nice, but a team still needs to minimize the damage on the other end of the floor. To that point, even though the Hornets aren’t a shutdown defence, their 2025-26 performances are far superior to those in previous seasons. Opponents average 112.1 points against them, good for ninth. Last year, the Hornets were no better than 16th, and two seasons ago they finished 22nd.
The coming weeks shall determine what’s in store for Charlotte. Regardless of how deep into the playoffs they go (assuming they get in), 2025-26 has proven to be a major stepping stone towards being part of the general NBA conversation. This is a good thing. After all, LeBron will retire someday, and we’ll need new topics to broach!
Edgar Chaps 
Leave a comment