Charlotte Hornets Player Preview: Coby White

Jeff Peterson is banking on a major leap from Coby White in 2026.

Before diving into what we can expect from White this season, it's worth re-visiting the impact of the man he is set to replace in the Charlotte Hornets' starting five.

LaMelo Ball was one of the most impactful offensive players in the NBA last season. He wielded his gravity-bending range and playmaking wizardry to captain the Hornets to their best offensive rating (119.7) since returning to Charlotte in 2004. Ball's playmaking numbers were just outrageous.

According to nbarapm.com, Ball assisted on 30.6 points per 100 possessions, and 5.7 three-point makes per 100 possessions, two numbers that are well above the league average. In simpler terms, Ball assisted on more than 100 of Brandon Miller and Kon Knueppel's made field goals in 2025-26. What do their stats look like over a full season without LaMelo Ball in the lineup?

We're about to find out.

Thankfully for Knueppel and Miller, Ball's replacement isn't too shabby.

Coby White is one of the more underrated offensive players in the league. Buried in a poor situation in Chicago, many NBA fans have slept on how efficient of a scorer White has been throughout his career. He's had an above-average true-shooting percentage from both two and three-point range in every season except for his rookie campaign, so if there's any reason to expect White to provide a reasonable facsimile of Ball's impact, it boils down to scoring efficiency.

The numbers say that White is better than Ball at getting to the rim and finishing when he gets there. Coby is a wrecking ball of a driver who blends a hiccup-quick first step with bruising physicality to barrel his way into the paint and get up shots for himself and his teammates. This skill was on full display at the end of quarters when White became one of Charlotte's go-to options with the clock running down.

"If I get two on me and I get off the ball? I've done my job....If I get in the paint and I get them (the defense) to collapse, I always make the right kick outs. Every time I get the ball I try to gain an advantage, whether that's scoring or drawing defenders," said White after getting traded to the Hornets.

For all of Ball's positive impact on team offense, he was never an efficient scorer from any spot on the floor. His efficiency struggles were always mitigated by his audacious deep three-point makes and passing wizardry, but there's an argument to be made that replacing Ball's wild swings in variance as a scorer with a more steady hand in White will lead to similar success.

The problem, though, is that White is nowhere near the same level of playmaker as Ball. White is a good passer, underrated if you let Jeff Peterson and Charles Lee tell the story, but his per100 passing numbers pale in comparison to LaMelo's.

Which brings us full-circle to answer this question: What should Charlotte Hornets fans expect from Coby White in 2026-27?

The answer? A career year.

White isn't LaMelo Ball, and he won't ever be, but that doesn't mean he can't have a monster season in Charlotte.

The ball is going to be in White's hands often, and if his scoring efficiency doesn't take a downturn with increased usage, the veteran point guard is liable to average a career-high in points-per-game. His previous benchmark was set in 2024-25 when he dropped 20.4 a night in Chicago, and it's reasonable to expect a jump into the mid-20s this year.

It's also safe to expect an increase in assists for White too. His career-high is 5.1 per game, set in 2023-24, when he was playing alongside ball-stoppers like DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine, and poor floor spacers like Ayo Dosunmu and Alex Caruso.

White's 21 game sample in Charlotte is a small one, and generally a tough one to extrapolate from due to his role as a supercharged sixth man that feasted on bench units, but it does show increases in usage, scoring efficiency, and assist percentage compared to the rest of his career in Chicago. The data should be taken with a grain of salt, but it could also wind up being predictive in the glass-half-fullest of scenarios.

Cleaning the Glass — Coby White Advanced Stats Overview | https://cleaningtheglass.com/stats/player/4578#tab-offensive_overview

This year's iteration of the Hornets should end up being the most talented group White has ever suited up alongside, and I'm expecting him to take full advantage of the space created by his teammate's gravity and the coaching staff's creativity.

He won't spoon feed Brandon Miller and Kon Knueppel as many easy threes in transition or off broken plays as his predecessor did, but White should rack up assists by operating the Hornets' complex offensive sets with precision. Few teams across the NBA run as many set plays as Charlotte does, giving their point guard the ability to rack up assists with his teammates off ball movements.

Charlotte's free-flowing, up-tempo half-court offense should juice White's statistics like he's a 2010's quarterback in the Big 12. While the LaMelo trade could be seen as an indictment on what Jeff Peterson thought about the team's long-term potential with Ball at the helm, it could also be seen as a sign of faith in White's ability to scale up in Charlotte's cushy environment.

An All-Star appearance isn't out of the realm of possibility for White. If he takes the leap that I, and the Hornets, clearly, expect him to, he'll deserve a shout come January.

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