It's already time to have a difficult conversation about 2025-26 Charlotte Hornets

Don't let the final nine-point margin fool you, the Charlotte Hornets got dismantled by the one-win Indiana Pacers last night. That makes two games the Hornets have had against teams that came in with a combined one win, and the Hornets didn't beat either one of them.

They faced the winless New Orleans Pelicans earlier, and they couldn't close the game out and lost. Last night, the injured Pacers, without Tyrese Haliburton, came in at 1-13 and absolutely ran the Hornets out of the building.

It's time to have a difficult conversation about this team. Something is wrong, and it's not totally clear what, but it's preventing them from reaching the level of play they can and should be at. They've had some inspiring losses that suggest they're close, but they still lose and then follow it up with terrible outings.

It's not talent, because there's plenty of talent on the roster. Collin Sexton, Tre Mann, Pat Connaughton, and a couple of others are legit NBA rotational players, so it's not as if they're cycling through 10-day contracts to fill out the bench spots.

It's not health, either. They're mainly just missing Brandon Miller, because Grant Williams and Josh Green probably don't move the needle much right now, and at least in Williams' case, he's been out for about a full year.

Oct 15, 2025; Greensboro, North Carolina, USA; Charlotte Hornets guard LaMelo Ball (1) celebrates with forward Brandon Miller (24) during the second half against the Memphis Grizzlies at First Horizon Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Brian Westerholt-Imagn Images | Brian Westerholt-Imagn Images

LaMelo Ball is healthy now, though he did miss some games. Sexton is healthy. Knueppel has been perfectly healthy, as has Miles Bridges. Pretty much everyone else on the roster has had no issue with injuries, so it's not a health issue.

It's just a performance issue. Maybe it falls on coaching, but at the end of the day, Charles Lee isn't out there shooting 40.2% from the field and 28.9% from three. Lee isn't allowing the other team to shoot 54.1% from the field, which is what his players did last night.

Lee's not totally innocent, though. At this point, letting Ball shoot 21 times in a game when he could only make five of them is really bad. But on the other hand, Ball has to know he can't shoot that much when he's ice cold. He's got capable teammates to feed it to when the shot's not falling, but he has seemingly not ditched his old mentality. That's at least partly on the coaches.

Maybe Brandon Miller's return will spark some change, but at this point, I seriously doubt it. The Hornets seem incapable of making positive growth even when they absolutely should. They're a better team than they were last year.

Knueppel is the current Rookie of the Year, and Ryan Kalkbrenner is not far behind. Sexton is a really strong backup guard. Others, like Moussa Diabate, Sion James, and even Miles Bridges, have looked solid. None of it has mattered, and I'm not really sure of any other recourse than to blow it up and try again.

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