Hornets May Be One Bad Year Away From Tearing It All Down Even Further

The Charlotte Hornets had one of the best seasons they've ever had (by advanced metrics) and the best winning percentage they've had since 2015-2016. It was the seventh-best season by record in franchise history.

How did they respond? Just by casually executing a semi-teardown of the roster. They traded LaMelo Ball, who, by all accounts, was a key piece of that turnaround and their success. They also traded Josh Green, an excellent bench player, and Miles Bridges, the longest-tenured Hornet.

If that's how the Hornets react to a winning season, we'd hate to see how they'd react to a losing season. And if the Hornets do have a losing season, then it's very possible that more massive changes are going to take place.

The Hornets have to know that they will be mildly worse. The additions they made do not offset the losses, mainly the loss of LaMelo Ball. They should be worse, although the on-paper team projects to be only a little bit behind this season.

If they're a lot worse, the front office has some tough decisions to make. They can't afford to sign Brandon Miller to a max deal (or something close to it) if the lone season in which he's the top dog goes up in flames.

Charlotte Hornets guard Coby White (3) alongside forward Brandon Miller (24) give an interview | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

The Hornets do not have a lot of flexibility to tear down much further than that. Kon Knueppel's not going anywhere because even if the team struggles, he's still going to have just two NBA seasons under his belt, which is far too few to pivot and trade him.

The Hornets just signed Coby White to a three-year deal, so trading him would be surprising but not impossible. They could sign-and-trade Moussa Diabaté like Miller, but that might be the extent of it.

Charlotte has unfortunately backed itself into a corner. They don't have a ton of flexibility to tear it down and rebuild yet again, but if they fail in 2026-27, that might be necessary; only it comes with a major, major downside.

The NBA is staunchly anti-tanking now, so the Hornets couldn't just sell off assets and be bad because they'd probably fall into the first tier of the new lottery system and get a bad draft pick.

Now, the good news is that the Hornets would have to be pretty bad to fall prey to all of this. It's genuinely a worst-case scenario that ends with trading Miller, Diabaté, and maybe others.

The Hornets would have to be mostly healthy (because no team is ever fully healthy) and still finish with a win total in the 20s to tear it down. We expect they'll take a step back, so a minor decrease in wins wouldn't warrant drastic changes. A major decrease, however, puts the Hornets in a really uncomfortable spot.

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