Why Charlotte Hornets fans should be patient with Charles Lee and his staff

How you feel about Charles Lee's tenure as the head coach of the Charlotte Hornets is likely based on your expectations for the team.

Those who think the Hornets are a playoff-ready, elite Popovic-ian or Carlisle-ian head coach away from making serious noise in the Eastern Conference are fed up with Lee. They believe that Charlotte has the requisite talent to make a leap up the hobbled standings in the East, but they are being held back by the general on the bench.

On the other side of the coin, there are those who continue to take a more measured, holistic view of Lee as a head coach.

That group can clearly see the lack of talent in key areas on the Hornets' roster that was exacerbated by the absences of LaMelo Ball and Brandon Miller in Tuesday night's last-minute loss to the New Orleans Pelicans

They are aware that the Hornets are the youngest team in the NBA, and at any moment are liable to have up to four rookies on the court at a time. When is the last time you can remember a team with four rookie contributors making a serious push for a playoff spot?

Those four have to take their lumps and learn how to win close games, making contests like the one in the Big Easy pivotal to their growth as professional hoopers. The coach trusting his rookies in big moments is going to burn him. That's part of the gig when you sign up to coach a team constructed this way.

Has Charles Lee made some head-scratching decisions down the stretch of close games? Certainly.

His deployment of his healthy guards, Collin Sexton, Tre Mann, and Sion James in the final minutes of games has been questionable. The Hornets' inability to inbound the ball in crunch time doesn't fall squarely on Lee's shoulders, but he does need to bear some of the blame.

However, there are clear signs of growth that have been spearheaded by Lee that cannot be denied.

The Hornets' offense is night and day from the poor product it was last year. It looks totally different schematically, and the chassis Charles Lee has built it on is one that has proven to be efficient in setting up his players in spots that they can succeed. Kon Knueppel, Sion James, and Ryan Kalkbrenner's instant success is due in part to their head coach's vision for them.

The developmentally-minded staff that Lee hired has been shouted out by players in post-game press conferences on numerous occasions as they try to build up the nucleus of young talent that will eventually lead the Hornets to the playoffs. Lee deserves some credit for hiring a staff that has been able to maximize the individual pieces they acquired this summer.

Far too often people take a narrative and run with it on social media without painting the entire picture for context. A decade of missing the playoffs has (rightfully) bred impatience in the Hornets' fanbase, but if you listened to the messaging the franchise spent all summer preaching, you should be aware that being competitive in 2025-26 was never the goal.

I have no idea if Charles Lee will be the head coach of the Hornets when they become relevant on a national stage again. What I do know is that he is far from the main reason that the team sits at 3-5 after two weeks of hoops. Injuries to the team's best players, a lack of defensive talent up and down the roster, and a youthful core should take the weight of the blame, but those amorphous ideas don't have a singular figurehead to point fingers at, so they take a backseat to a head coach that fans can mobilize against.

Again, Lee has been far from perfect. He's only in year two of running an NBA team, and just like the young players he is coaching, he has to learn how to do his job at the highest level; managing a group of players and coaches and getting them all to peak for two and a half hours a couple of times per week.

This season is going to be one marked by growth. Growth from the rookie class, growth from Brandon Miller and LaMelo Ball, and growth from Lee himself. He deserves time to stretch his legs and learn how to respond when the bullets fly just like Kon, Sion, Ryan, Liam, KJ, and the rest of his young players do.

I don't blame you if you're tired of being waiting for this franchise to turn things around and win basketball games. A decade of futility has made it difficult to continue to be patient. But, it's going to take a few more months, if not years, of pruning the brunt of the previous regime's sins before the fanbase can enjoy the fruit of what is to come.

The organization is finally, for the first time in what feels like forever, seems aligned from ownership down to the coaching staff including everything inbetween. Charles Lee is here to stay, and his seat shouldn't even be moderately warm at this point.

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