The dust has settled after one of the more Earth shattering trade seasons in recent memory. We saw a perennial MVP candidate get blindsided by a midseason trade and a number of second tier stars change teams. The Charlotte Hornets were not in the business of building a roster that would compete this season. Instead, they did the same thing they did last season–offload players to stockpile future assets.
First, let’s summarize the moves the Hornets made.
- Traded Nick Richards and the Nuggets 2025 2nd round pick to the Suns for Josh Okogie, Nuggets 2nd round picks in 2026 and 2031, and the Suns 2nd round pick in 2031
- Sent Mark Williams to the Lakers for Dalton Knecht, Cam Reddish, a 1st round pick swap in 2030, and an unprotected 1st round pick in 2031
- Traded Cody Martin and Vasilije Micic and a 2026 2nd round pick to the Suns for Jusuf Nurkic and a 2026 1st round pick
The trades have left the Hornets roster rather gutted, but that’s kind of the point. The tank is fully on as the team tries to build for the future (again). This time though, it does feel like they’re being quite a bit more aggressive in collecting assets to build with. This is two traded deadlines in a row where we’ve seen the Hornets go this route, and they’ve built up quite a treasure chest full of picks. Here’s what they have year by year (to the best of my ability).
2025
- Hornets own 1st round pick if it falls within the lottery, which it definitely will (currently 4th)
- Pelicans 2nd round pick (currently 32nd overall)
- Hornets own 2nd round pick (currently 34th overall)
2026
- Hornets own 1st round pick
- The worst 1st round pick out of the Wizards, Magic, Grizzlies, and Suns
- Nuggets 2nd round pick
2027
- Hornets own 1st round pick
- Mavericks 1st round pick if it is not in the top 2
- Heat first round pick if it is outside the lottery
- Pelicans 2nd round pick
2028
- Hornets own 1st round pick
- Heat unprotected 1st round pick if it did not convey in 2027
- Hornets own 2nd round pick
2029
- Hornets own 1st round pick
- Hornets own 2nd round pick
- Nuggets 2nd round pick
- Suns 2nd round pick
2030
- Right to swap 1st round picks with the Lakers
- Hornets own 2nd round pick
2031
- Hornets own 1st round pick
- Lakers unprotected 1st round pick
- Hornets own 2nd round pick
- Suns 2nd round pick
- Nuggets 2nd round pick
It’s a lot of picks that go well into the future, but the plan isn’t necessarily to use all of those picks to draft future Hornets. The team does have some nice pieces already–LaMelo Ball and Brandon Miller could be All Stars in the near future. Miles Bridges and Tre Mann are nice complementary pieces. Maybe Dalton Knecht and Tidjane Salaün will be as well. Plus a potentially very high lottery pick will be coming in this summer. If the organization likes where they are, they now have a very appealing stockpile of assets to use to bring in a franchise altering player via trade.
The moves the Hornets made mean they’ll operate over the cap next summer. Even if they rescind all of their unrestricted free agents and waive their nonguaranteed contracts, they’ll still be over the cap with Tre Mann’s cap hold. Mann is a restricted free agent, and given how well he played at the beginning of the season, there’s no reason the Hornets won’t keep him around. He’s the perfect player to let test restricted free agency, as its very nature will somewhat suppress his value and help the Hornets retain him on a good deal if he’s amenable to it.
The Hornets will try to emulate the Thunder rebuild arc. The Thunder benefited from bigger returns for bigger stars, but the idea is still the same. They had a cornerstone point guard without a good roster around him. On top of that, they used a few very high picks after poor seasons to add young talent, and once they started showing signs of competitiveness, they started using their collection of assets to add well-fitting veteran talent to fill in the gaps. They had two very bad seasons, one mediocre one, then ascended to their current place as one of the best teams in the NBA.
It’s fair to be frustrated watching the Hornets punt on another season. At least they’ve genuinely built up a stockpile of things we can look forward to over the last couple of years. If the lottery balls are kind, the Hornets look like they can start an upward climb sooner rather than later. They have a ways to go before they have a roster that they can truly expect to compete, but you can see the plan. Hopefully we’ll get to watch that happen.
