Hornets' Execs Will Be Happy With Starter's Regression to the Mean

There aren’t many scenarios in the NBA where you can look at the performance of a team’s starting five and say that regression to the mean was a good thing.

For the betterment of the Charlotte Hornets' front office and General Manager Jeff Peterson, I view the recent losses to better teams as the best-case scenario for Charlotte.

I believe they do in some shape or form, too.

No longer can we live on the Euphoria of nine-game win streaks – a comedown from the moon was always in the cards. It's how sports work. Given that the Hornets have some major decisions, i.e., Brandon Miller’s extension, to make this offseason:

It was uber important for the front office to see the real flaws in this starting five.

Hard to do that when, until the past month, the Hornets' starting five had less than a handful of losses when all five were playing together.

Moussa Diabate started taking the opening tip-offs as a starter for the Hornets regularly on December 23rd, 2025. Since then, excluding his and Miles Bridges’ five-game suspension (and Moose’s few missed games), Charlotte’s record is 30-13 with Diabate as their primary center.

That’s one heck of a sample. More than a sample — it’s real, tangible evidence of what Charlotte’s full collection of talent can do together without injury… since probably 2015-2016.

I alluded to this early, but the losses that have come along the way have been just as crucial as the wins and win streaks we’ve seen.

Each loss showed us something different about a deficiency that this Hornets team was prone to having exposed; by WHAT, exactly, was prone to exposing those deficiencies.

Jeff Peterson and his staff don’t have to throw arrows at a dartboard in the dark now. Not that their competency to this point suggests they couldn’t have worked around it and not overvalued a player in the dark…

The regression has just made their point(s) of attack more transparent to the front office; the losses can’t have brought doom and gloom to them. For a basketball evaluator, the high of bias(es) is real when a team is seeing unprecedented success without also seeing the low floor.

Think of Timofey Mozgov’s signing with the Lakers (send your regards to Mitch Kupchak…) about a decade ago now because of his performance during one of LeBron’s best seasons as a pro.

Being brought down to earth about the Hornets’ team’s needs is perfect for Charlotte’s front office. They’ve now seen the ceiling and floor of their collection of talent’s potential together. In full.

Everything opens up for the Hornets now, because what they need is much more dialed in. Dartboard, but this time with the lights on.

Free agency, Brandon Miller/Coby White’s (both seem inevitable) extensions, and deciding whether to re-sign Josh Green or any other new free agents altogether become simpler. You know what kind of “Hornets DNA” a guy requires. We do as media and fans now, as well. Coach Charles Lee is happy to emphasize its importance regularly.

Peterson and company will simply dial in their “Hornets DNA” filter to include this team’s holes, too. A perimeter defender, or do they believe Brandon or Sion James has the potential to grow further into the kind of role that currently looks like a hole needing to be plastered back up?

These are the kinds of questions that, at the very least, seem clearer now than they have been so far.

The big teams dialed up their intensity against the Hornets to expose the same holes that Peterson and his staff can now see. It’s been a blessing and a curse; teams like Philadelphia and Boston saw the same sample size.

They took Charlotte five times more seriously because of it. How many times have talking heads like me said in the past few months that, “this game felt like it had playoff intensity in the crowd, but more importantly, on the court from both teams, too.”?

That’s teams taking you seriously. Only when good teams take you seriously can anyone, fans or front office, start to have a real feel for a team’s strengths and weaknesses.

This is why everyone says playoff experience is crucial for young teams. Charlotte’s been lucky to be good enough that they’ve seen a taste of it before the 82 was finished.

Jaylen Brown was quoted last night, after Charlotte’s most recent loss to Boston in TD Garden, as saying, “this (the Hornets) reminds me of us when we were younger.”

"This reminds me of us when we were younger," says Jaylen Brown after the game versus Charlotte.

— Owen O’Connor (@OwenOConnorNBA) April 8, 2026

Those younger Celtics, during Jaylen Brown's rookie season (2016-2017), did get much more early playoff experience than the Hornets this season. Despite the difference, Brown’s Celtic’s early struggles do have some similarities.

Brown’s rookie Celtics reached the Conference Finals and lost to LeBron James and the Cavaliers in five games.

In Brown’s sophomore season, they would take LeBron’s Cavs to seven games and lose in seven. After sweeping the Pacers in round one of 2018-2019, they would lose to Giannis’ Bucks in five Eastern Semifinal games the year after.

Boston made it to the ECF again in the COVID-shortened season against Miami, but would lose in six games; Boston would be bounced in the first round by Brooklyn in five during Brown’s first All-Star year, a season after losing to Miami in the Disney Bubble.

Keep in mind, all this time until the end of my list, Brown hadn’t once been named an NBA All-Star. That gives me hope for Brandon Miller, whose extension feels like a virtual lock at this point. It’s the number that is going to make people’s eyes go wide, not the extension itself.

Miller is 23 right now, and Brown was 24 in his first appearance year – the same season that they lost in the first round to the Nets.

That first round loss and first All-Star appearance were the picture of that guy mining with diamonds on the other side. Except for Boston, Brown, and Jayson Tatum, through all the coaching changes, they didn’t give up along the way.

They reached the diamonds and made the Finals for the first time since 2009-2010. Charlotte is still mining right now.

In the same way, through a different team and story, I believe the Hornets will bounce back next year and start the year strong after these tough lessons learned. The possibility of finding diamonds is 100% there for them next year; Charlotte’s bar is different than Boston’s right now. It doesn’t have to be the Finals.

This long monologue now finished, I bring up the Celtics' struggle and Brown’s recent comparison to the Hornets because these tough lessons being necessary apply just the same for an NBA team’s front office.

That lesson is JUST as important for the front office as it is on court, even.

Peterson will be getting those laser-eyed memes again this summer, because his ability to dissect this team’s needs appropriately this year will have him laser-focused on all the right areas for the offseason.

All because we got to see this team's regression from their high highs back down to the mean.

As a growing team, you have to withstand blows and compete with big teams a few times, at least, before you can start delivering blows to the heavyweights yourself.

As a fanbase, for the first time maybe ever, you just have to trust the team knows what they’re doing. That’s a calming feeling, I must say.

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