While the big draft pick shuffle is still almost three weeks away, the NBA did a little bit of housekeeping with the order of the picks. There aren’t any special tiebreakers to set the draft order of teams that finish with the same record. Instead, the league simply does a drawing for each of the picks where there is a tie.
The Charlotte Hornets were a part of one of those drawings because of the trade to acquire Jusuf Nurkic from the Suns a couple of years ago. The Suns gave the Hornets a first round pick as a favor for taking Nurkic off their hands and were kind enough to weave the Hornets into a convoluted web of pick swaps and protections involving the Wizards, Grizzlies, and Magic. I think it all traces back to the Bradley Beal trade and later the Desmond Bane trade, but it’s a lot to figure out. It doesn’t matter though. In essence, the Hornets get the worst pick out of the Wizards, Grizzlies, Magic, and Suns.
The Magic and Suns were part of a three way tie at 45-37 with the 76ers. Those teams were set to pick 16 through 18 in the draft pending the drawing. Since the Hornets can only get the worst of the Magic and Suns pick, the best they could get was 17. They didn’t get lucky. The Magic landed at 18, and that pick will go to the Hornets.
The Hornets also own their own pick, which landed at 14 after the play-in loss to the Magic. That’s the last spot in the lottery, which means the Hornets could technically move up to the top 4 if the ping pong balls favor the Hornets in what’s probably their grand finale in this current system. The Hornets have a 0.5% (1 in 200) chance to jump up to number one overall and a 2.4% chance of landing somewhere in the top four. It’s highly unlikely that happens, obviously, but no lie, I did get the Hornets picking first overall on my first try on the Tankathon sim after seeing the final draft order, so anything is possible.
The Hornets don’t own a second round pick in this draft. They originally had one, but they gave it to the Heat as a “sorry the player we traded you got arrested as part of an illegal gambling ring that he partook in while on our team” apology trade.
That means in all likelihood, the Hornets will go into the draft with just the 14th and 18th picks. I’d be surprised if they used both picks to stock more rookies onto an already young roster that looks like it’s ready to take the next step. My best guess on the plan would be to use the better of the two picks while packaging the other one as part of a trade for a difference making veteran player.
I’m also really interested to see the way Jeff Peterson and company manage the situation. It parallels almost perfectly to the 2022 draft. The Hornets had just finished the season with a 43-39 record and brutal play-in game loss. It was a young team that looked like it was on the up and up, and they had the 13th and 15th picks in the 2022 NBA Draft to help supplement that roster. They ended up trading the better of those two picks in exchange for the Nuggets first round pick the following year, which ended up being 27th overall. The 13th pick (that the Hornets gave away) ended up being Jalen Duren, who was an all star this year and a key piece for the one seed Detroit Pistons. The 15th pick (that the Hornets kept )was Mark Williams, who was good but was traded away after two tries to get him out of here. The 27th pick they got in 2023 in exchange for Duren was Nick Smith Jr, who is also long gone from the organization.
I’m pretty confident Peterson is going to manage the situation pretty differently, and his track record so far suggests that he’ll make the Hornets better out of it. That said, we’re entering what’s probably the toughest part of the team building he’s had to do so far. The way he manages this draft is going to have significant ramifications on how next season plays out for his team.
