The best part of being a terrible team means you get more time to dig into the offseason. The Charlotte Hornets, along with 14 other teams, started their offseason in the middle of April. It’s very important that the front office gets this offseason right after another lost regular season, and it’s going to require some luck and creativity.

Draft Assets

The Hornets have three picks in the 2025 NBA Draft. Pre-lottery, those picks are 3, 33, and 34. The lottery pick is obviously going to be expected to contribute right. Picks 33 and 34 are in a sweet spot where you can potentially land a first round talent without having to be locked into a guaranteed contract. The Hornets could use those picks in a deep draft or capitalize on their relative value to move around.

A team needs a superstar in order to be successful in the NBA. The Hornets have LaMelo Ball and Brandon Miller, who look like cornerstone pieces, but some lottery luck can put them over the top. The Hornets have a chance to land the top overall pick and select Cooper Flagg, who looks like a franchise altering, two-way superstar in the making. The Hornets have a 14% chance of that happening. They have a 52.1% chance of picking in the top four. The entire course of the offseason can change based on how the ping pong balls bounce.

Pending Free Agents

• Tre Mann (restricted)
• Seth Curry
• Taj Gibson
• Wendell Moore (two-way)

Tre Mann is the most important name on his list given his youth and early season productivity before he got hurt. He’s a restricted free agent, so the Hornets will have the right to match any offer that he signs elsewhere. They also have his Bird Rights, so they can sign him to any contract regardless of the salary cap situation. Letting Mann walk doesn’t really open up a whole lot of cap space to replace him, so unless there are some convoluted trades coming, you’d think the Hornets are going to bring him back.

Seth Curry would be a nice-to-have, and based on last season, he can be had for cheap if he wants to stick around.

The Hornets also have decisions to make on three unguaranteed contracts:

• Moussa Diabate
• DaQuan Jeffries
• Josh Okogie

Diabate quickly earned a regular spot in the rotation after signing a two-way deal last offseason, and the Hornets signed him to a full NBA deal after he exhausted his two-way eligibility. He’s safe.

The other two are question marks. The pair are redundant with one another, and if the Hornets plan on adding players, they need to let some go. Okogie’s deal is for $7.75 million while Jeffries’ is for $2.75. The Hornets are going to be over the cap either way, so the salaries don’t make a whole lot of difference. With that said, Jeffries seems like the most likely odd man out if there can only be one.

Salary Cap Situation

The Hornets will likely operate this offseason over the cap. At most, they can clear about $12 million in space, but that would require rescinding the rights of Tre Mann and his restricted free agency. Mann’s $14.7 million cap hold pushes the team over the cap, and that’s likely how they’ll elect to operate. They can’t create more signing power via cap space than they could get with the mid level exception.

If the Hornets do stay over the cap, they’ll have the mid level exception at their disposal, which is projected to be a little over $14 million. They can split that among multiple signings to fill out the roster, spend it all in one place, or use it to absorb salary in a trade.

Trade Assets

Obviously every player on the roster could be a trade asset of some kind, but there are a few that are more valuable in that respect than others. The Hornets also have future draft capital aside from their own picks:

• 2026 1st round pick that is worst of Suns, Magic, Wizards, and Grizzlies
• 2027 lottery protected 1st round pick from Heat (becomes unprotected in 2028)
• 2027 top 2 protected 1st round pick from Mavericks
• A bunch of future 2nd round picks from the Nuggets and Suns

The most interesting trade asset the Hornets have outside of the draft picks is the contract of Jusuf Nurkic. Nurk is going into the last year of his deal and is owed $19.4 million. That’s probably a bigger deal at the trade deadline when more teams know if they’re buyers or sellers, but it could come in handy if there’s a team looking to start or accelerate a teardown this summer.

Overall Outlook

There aren’t any glaringly obvious moves on the horizon this summer, but this front office has shown that they’ll be anything but passive. There are decisions to be made on the periphery of the roster for sure. With the core pieces all under contract and no significant cap space, lottery luck and trades are going to be the key avenues for success this offseason.