Inside the Numbers of the Charlotte Hornets' League-Leading Five-Man Lineup

All of the numbers point to the Charlotte Hornets being a borderline elite basketball team.

Since LaMelo Ball returned to the lineup on December 18th and the Hornets have had their core of Ball, Brandon Miller, and Kon Knueppel available for the majority of games, Charlotte has the seventh best net rating in the NBA (+5.9).

The Hornets' offense has been humming during that stretch. Charlotte's offensive rating of 120.6 is the second-best number since 12/18, and if extrapolated over the entire season, it would be third behind only Denver and Boston.

Production from bench players like Collin Sexton, Grant Williams, Sion James, Ryan Kalkbrenner, and a number of others obviously boosts those numbers, but it's the Hornets starting five that is eviscerating their opponents.

The best lineup in basketball?

Per Cleaning the Glass, Charlotte's five-man unit of LaMelo Ball, Kon Knueppel, Brandon Miller, Miles Bridges, and Moussa Diabate, is the most efficient lineup in the sport.

Of five-man groupings that have played at least 250 possessions together, the Hornets' starting five has a net rating differential of +24.6, better than any high-usage lineup Oklahoma City, Boston, Denver, Detroit, or San Antonio can muster.

That lineup's juice is squeezed on the offensive end.

With those five on the floor, Charlotte pulls down 36.2% of the offensive rebounds available to them, the second-best number among the filtered group of five-man lineups. That number dips 5.5% when you replace Diabate with Ryan Kalkbrenner, proving the value of Moussa in the Hornets' starting five.

Furthermore, the main difference between lineups that include Diabate instead of Kalkbrenner comes on the defensive end of the floor.

Ball/Knueppel/Miller/Bridges/Diabate: 111.7 defensive rating (67th percentile)

Ball/Knueppel/Miller/Bridges/Kalkbrenner: 125.3 defensive rating (20th percentile)

This can simply be boiled down to how well opposing teams shoot threes when Kalkbrenner is on the floor. Opposing three-point percentages jump 14.4% when Kalkbrenner mans the paint.

Some of that can be chalked up to noise in a relatively small sample size, but it does pass the vibe check. Opposing bigs who can space the floor beyond the arc have given Kalkbrenner fits, and his preferred role of slinking back into drop coverage has been exposed by high-powered offenses.

Diabate, although undersized, is agile as all get out. Combine that with his relentless effort and improved feel, and you have a legitimately impactful small ball five.

"Defense is fun to me," said Diabate following the Hornets' nailbiting win over the Wizards on a snowy Satuday in Charlotte.

Making the switch from Kalkbrenner to Diabate has unlocked a wide array of defensive coverages for the Hornets, but that's not the only reason this five man lineup is obliterating their competition. The chemistry between Ball, Miller, and Knueppel is intoxicating -- those three were created to play beautiful offensive basketball as a trio.

Ball is the maestro, Knueppel is the steady bass riff reverberating through the offense, and Miller is the soloist; a creative option who can come up with magic when things break down.

The Charlotte Hornets are 3.5 games behind the Atlanta Hawks for the last spot in the Eastern Conference's Play-In Tournament with 36 games to play. A berth for the Hornets is far from guaranteed at this point, but don't count out this group quite yet.

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