Evaluating Jake LaRavia as a potential free agent fit for the Charlotte Hornets

Profiling Jake LaRavia as a potential free agent target for the Charlotte Hornets.

Matt Alquiza | Apr 21, 2025

Ed Szczepanski-Imagn Images

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Charlotte Hornets

Among many other items on their offseason check list, the Charlotte Hornets must address their need for perimeter shooting. Their avenues to adding talent are limited to, as is currently stands, the non-taxpayer mid-level exception ($14,105,000 that can be split between multiple players), their lottery pick in the 2025 NBA Draft (guaranteed to land between picks one and seven), and two second-round picks.

Their path to upgrading the roster is slim, but it's not impossible for the Hornets to add impact players on a budget this summer. Jake LaRavia is the perfect impact free agent that Jeff Peterson could acquire for cheap when free agency opens in July.

Analyzing Jake LaRavia's fit with the Charlotte Hornets

LaRavia, a former first-round pick out of Wake Forest University, is one of the league's premier long-range shot makers. Ahead of his first foray into unrestricted free agency, LaRavia knocked down 43% of his three-point attempts in a season split between Memphis and Sacramento.

Jake LaRavia is one of my ideal targets for the Hornets in free agency.

The former first-round pick has been limited due to injury woes and Memphis' wing depth, but LaRavia is a capital D Deadly shooter with solid defensive chops.

23 y/o unrestricted free agent pic.twitter.com/a1XLiBKHdP
— Matt Alquiza (@malquiza8) April 21, 2025

He brings good positional size and solid defensive chops to marry his elite shooting at the wing position. LaRavia stands at 6'7" and his individual steal rate was among the best at his position in limited minutes this season. He isn't an all-world wing stopper, but LaRavia has a plus wingspan and is adept at playing in the gaps off-ball.

However, for all of the positive impact he could potentially bring to Charlotte, the warts on LaRavia's profile are glaring. For his career the pending free agent has both an astronomical turnover rate, pointing to a struggle to create offense with the ball in his hand, and an egregiously high foul rate, detailing his struggle to guard one-on-one.

Lastly, LaRavia has trouble getting to the rim on offense which would compound a problem that the Hornets already struggled with. Charlotte was one of the league's worst three-point shooting teams accuracy-wise, but many of their struggles could be boiled down to the lack of elite creation at the guard and wing positions in the Queen City.

LaRavia will help the team's overall accuracy, but he won't be creating paint touches for his teammates to eat off of. Only 33% of his shots came at the rim in 2024-25, a number true to the rest of his career. His gravity on the perimeter will open up looks for others, but those looks will still have to be created by someone else.

Projecting LaRavia's potential contract

Malik Beasley, the NBA's three-point champion and Sixth Man of the Year finalist, signed a one-year deal in Detroit for $6 million last summer. I project LaRavia will demand a similar amount in unrestricted free agency come July, and at that number, Charlotte should make the call and bring him back to the Tarheel State.