The Five Biggest Reasons For Charlotte's Disappointing Season

With the 1st pick in the "Disappointing" draft, Drew Cook Selects...

We asked our team of All Hornets contributors to "Draft" reasons why the Hornets failed the 2023-24 season. After an obvious first overall selection, the remaining four draft selections appear far more murky.

Drew Cook - 1st Pick - Injuries

Starters LaMelo Ball and Mark Williams managed just 41 games combined, highlighting Charlotte’s injury troubles. The Hornets announced that LaMelo Ball, Cody Martin, and Seth Curry, have now all been shut down for the remainder of the 2023-2024 NBA season, a fitting end for a team that has been plagued by injuries for the better part of two seasons now.

LaMelo Ball’s never-ending battle with injuries has started to become an allegory for the franchise's struggles as a whole. Charlotte rank 3rd in the league in games missed with 228, behind only Memphis (492) and Portland (310). They have also had a league high 17 players miss at least one game, that’s more than the 15 on the full roster! How much if Charlotte's injury issues are bad luck vs poor injury management? That's a divisive topic which each person will have their own view on.

Should the Hornets ever hope to see the full potential of their young core, they will have to hope for better health next season.

Austin Leake - 2nd Pick - Lack of Depth 

The Hornets failed to address their lack of depth in the off-season and that issue became more prevalent once the injury bug caught on.

Charlotte failed to bring in an established back-up point guard, signing the formerly retired Ish Smith mere days before the season started. Maledon nor Ntilikina looked comfortable in the role when healthy, neither finished the season on the team.

At center there was a whole behind Richards and Williams, forcing undrafted rookie Nathan Mensah to suddenly forced into a key role, in which he struggled.

After Mitch Kupchak admitted last season’s team lacked depth, you thought they would have learnt from their mistakes. Charlotte’s cast of misfit backups including Ish Smith, Bryce McGowens, Jt Thor, Nathan Mensah, Leaky Black, and James Bouknight wouldn’t make many other rosters in the league. Finally, at the trade deadline the Hornets added depth reliable veteran role players in Vasilije Micic, Grant Williams, Tre Mann, and Davis Bertans.

Matt Alquiza - 3rd Pick - The Botched 2021 Draft

This is the time players drafted in 2021 should be making the leap. You see it all over the league; Jalen Green has been on a warpath in the Rockets torrid stretch. Franz Wagner and Jalen Suggs are playing key roles on a contending Magic team. Alperen Şengün, Trey Murphy, and Jalen Johnson have all markedly improved.

Meanwhile in Charlotte, James Bouknight and Kai Jones are no longer employed by the Charlotte Hornets. Charlotte had the opportunity to add two first round talents around LaMelo Ball, but they contributes were zero over their three seasons. 

Recent draft hits Brandon Miller and Mark Williams (when healthy) are on the way to providing that, but the two bites Charlotte had in the draft apple in 2021 have left them with a sour stomach and a barren roster.

James Plowright – 4th Pick - Coaching Errors

When Steve Clifford started the year with both a healthy(ish) LaMelo Ball and Mark Williams, Charlotte got off to a disappointing 5-15 start. The Hornets looked lost on both ends, scoring just 99 points in a loss against a historically bad Pistons teams and giving up 132 against the hapless Wizards, starting the year with the 28th ranked defense.

Clifford regularly referenced his 'Different' approach to training camp and pre-season. In the NBA most teams embed their defensive and offensive principles as a priority first, Clifford chose to let his team scrimmage regularly as a priority instead. I think that has been one contributory factor to the teams' slow start each of the past two years, often looking unorganized and rusty compared to their opponents only to then improve later in the season.

Despite the injuries, Clifford struggled to find competitive lineups or get the best out of his young players. Compare that to Taylor Jenkins in Memphis who was forced into a similar situation playing rookies and 10 day contract players, he managed to drag Memphis to 24 wins. Clifford is a well-respected coach, but over the past two seasons many of the young players have struggled to make strides and positively impact the team.

Pat Fitzsimmons – 5th Pick - Lack of veteran leadership

Both Terry Rozier and Gordon Hayward seemed well liked by their teammates, but failed to build a winning culture in Charlotte. This Hornets roster was young, with multiple players suffering from off-court issues. Hayward was the team’s best and most expensive player but wasn’t a vocal leader, notably not traveling to away play-in games when injured.

Rozier made efforts to build off-court camaraderie, everyone remembers the “Miami trip” in the 2022 off-season. However, he also failed in helping change the losing culture and develop the young players around them. As Terry Rozier said after joining Miami, “When you’re in Charlotte, you’re kind of used to losing. It’s kind of your DNA.” It would have been better if Rozier and Hayward took on the role of changing that losing culture, instead of seemingly accepting it, which in return the young players likely followed their lead.

Conclusion

There we have it, the five biggest reasons for the disappointing Hornets season. If you feel a sense of Déjà vu I don't blame you, these were the same issues the team faced last season. Perhaps the ownership change paralysed any real change, but Mitch Kupchak must accept responsibility for not learning from the mistakes of 2022-23.