A 2024 offseason preview for the Charlotte Hornets

The Hornets had postseason aspirations entering training camp in 2023, but their season never really got off the ground due in large part to a series of injuries.

LaMelo Ball, Charlotte’s star point guard, appeared in only 22 games due to a right ankle ailment that required surgery. Back issues limited promising young starting center Mark Williams to just 19 contests all season while three-and-D wing Cody Martin, a key connecting player, ended up playing only 28 times after missing the first two months of the season while recovering from a procedure on his left knee.

The Hornets’ roster wasn’t exactly loaded with star-level talent to begin with, so without much room for error, the team was unable to overcome a constantly full injury report to stay in the hunt in the Eastern Conference. But that was probably a blessing in disguise. Falling out of contention early made it an easy decision to sell off talent – including veterans like Terry Rozier, P.J. Washington and Gordon Hayward – for young players, draft picks and expiring contracts prior to February’s trade deadline.

It also served as a good time for the new ownership group, headed by Rick Schnall and Gabe Plotkin, to overhaul the front office — they hired promising young executive Jeff Peterson away from the Nets to replace Mitch Kupchak as the club’s head of basketball operations. A season of change was capped by head coach Steve Clifford stepping down from his role at season’s end to transition to a position in the front office.

Charlotte’s short-term outlook might not look much different than it did 12 months ago, but with a new general manager, a new head coach (Charles Lee) and a new young cornerstone player (2023’s No. 2 overall pick Brandon Miller) in place, there’s more reason for optimism in the long term.

The Hornets’ offseason plan

When a new management group takes over a rebuilding team, the first order of business is to establish which of the incumbent players are part of the long-term plan. In the Hornets’ case, there’s one obvious sure thing: Miller, whose impressive rookie season was largely overlooked while Victor Wembanyama was doing things we’ve never seen before in San Antonio and Chet Holmgren was anchoring the defense for the West’s No. 1 seed in Oklahoma City.

But Miller, a versatile wing defender with size, averaged 17.3 points per game and made 37.3% of his three-pointers in his first NBA season. He’s just 21 years old and has legitimate star upside, so the fact that Charlotte will have him on a rookie scale contract for three more years is a huge boon for the franchise.

We can probably add Ball to that list of core building blocks too. He’ll need to be healthier going forward for the Hornets to count on him, but Ball – who is only 15 months older than Miller – has an All-Star berth under his belt and appeared to be on the verge of leveling up early in the 2023-24 season, averaging 25.9 points and 8.6 assists in his first 14 games before getting hurt. His five-year, maximum-salary rookie scale extension will begin this summer, so barring an unexpected pivot from the new front office, it’s safe to assume the plan will be to continue adding pieces around Ball and Miller.

Assuming his back issue doesn’t linger, Williams looks like one solid piece to complement those two rising stars. The big man showed in 2023 – both at the end of his rookie season and the start of his sophomore year – that he has the potential to develop into a solid starting center. He has one more year before he becomes extension-eligible, so the Hornets won’t have to make any decisions on him in the short term — they’ll just hope he’s healthy enough to get a longer look at him as the starting five in 2024-25.

While there’s no obvious fourth long-term keeper under contract at this point, there are a couple more candidates who could join that group. The first is whichever prospect Charlotte drafts with the No. 6 pick.

Assuming the franchise remains fully committed to Ball, selecting another ball-dominant player in that spot might not make sense, but pretty much any other position is a possibility, given the relatively wide-open nature of the roster. That includes a sharpshooter (Reed Sheppard or Dalton Knecht), a three-and-D forward (Zaccharie Risacher), a secondary ball-handler and play-maker (Matas Buzelis), a wing scorer (Ron Holland), or even a rim-protecting big man (Donovan Clingan). Some, but not all, of those players will be off the board by the time Charlotte is on the clock at No. 6, and Peterson will have a chance to put his stamp on the roster with his choice in that spot.

The other player whom the Hornets could make part of their core is unrestricted free agent Miles Bridges, who returned after a year out of the league and showed no signs of rust, averaging 21.0 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 3.3 assists in a team-high 37.4 minutes per game. However, Bridges’ free agency is more complicated than most.

The reason Bridges was out of the league for a year is because he was facing credible domestic assault charges. His case was resolved when he accepted a plea deal and was sentenced to three years of probation, at which point he re-signed for one year with the Hornets, served an NBA suspension and then reclaimed his spot in the team’s starting lineup. However, he later faced new allegations of domestic violence following the resolution of the initial case.

Those newer charges were eventually dismissed due to insufficient evidence for a trial, but they won’t exactly work in Bridges’ favor as he seeks a lucrative, long-term deal. The Hornets have a series of questions to answer before investing in Bridges long-term. Are they confident his legal issues are fully behind him? Are they comfortable making a major financial investment in him from a moral – and public relations – perspective? Do they want him to be one of the faces of their franchise? If they do try to re-sign him, will the off-court baggage bring his value down, both in contract talks and in potential future trade negotiations? And beyond all that, exactly how much value does he provide on the court, where he has only made 35.0% of his three-pointers in one of five NBA seasons?

It’s obviously not in a rebuilding team’s best interest to let a talented 26-year-old player go for nothing, but giving Bridges a big payday and then having him show up in the headlines again for the wrong reasons would be a black eye on the organization. The Hornets have a lot to consider as they weigh Bridges’ future — if they have reservations, it could make sense to explore another short-term contract, a deal with protections for the team or sign-and-trade scenarios.

There are no true potential impact players on the rest of the roster, but Grant Williams, Martin, Nick Richards, Vasilije Micic and Tre Mann are solid enough depth pieces who could either be trade chips this offseason or could return to fill out next season’s roster.

Of those players, I’d consider Micic the most likely trade candidate. A salary-matching piece in the Hayward deal, the Serbian play-maker was given a chance to play real minutes down the stretch and showed he’s capable of playing a backup point guard role at the NBA level. Micic will be on a pseudo-expiring contract (he has a team option for 2025/26) and the 30-year-old rookie would likely prefer to play for a contender. His poor three-point shooting (27.9% on the season, including 29.4% in Charlotte) will hurt his value a little, but he could at least net a second-round pick if the Hornets take back an unwanted contract.

After taking into account the cap hold for Bridges and the No. 6 pick, along with the partial guarantee on Davis Bertans‘ option year, the Hornets won’t have significant cap room this summer, especially if they decide to retain some of their players with non-guaranteed contracts, including Seth Curry, Aleksej Pokusevski, Bryce McGowens, and JT Thor.

Still, they could easily have at least $15M+ to work with (or $30M+ if Bridges walks), plus the $8M room exception. That space might be best spent on accommodating salary-dump trades with teams looking to shed salary.

Having taken a step backward last season by trading a series of veterans, the Hornets presumably aren’t giving Peterson a mandate to get the team back to the playoffs as soon as possible, so he can afford to take things slow and continue to stockpile draft assets — that patient, deliberate approach to the rebuild may line up the team to land another top-six pick in the 2025 draft, which is considered stronger at the top than this year’s.

Salary cap situation

Guaranteed salary

• LaMelo Ball ($35,250,000)
  • Ball’s cap hit is a tentative figure based on 25% of a projected $141M cap.
• Grant Williams ($13,025,250)
• Brandon Miller ($11,424,600)
• Cody Martin ($8,120,000)
• Vasilije Micic ($7,723,000)
• Nick Richards ($5,000,000)
• Tre Mann ($4,908,373)
• Mark Williams ($4,094,280)
• Nick Smith Jr. ($2,587,200)
• Total: $92,132,703
  

Non-guaranteed salary

• Seth Curry ($4,000,000)
  • Curry’s salary will become guaranteed if he remains under contract through June 28.
• Aleksej Pokusevski ($2,273,252)
  • Pokusevski’s salary will become guaranteed if he remains under contract through July 8.
• Bryce McGowens ($2,019,699)
  • McGowens’ salary will become guaranteed if he remains under contract through July 18.
• Leaky Black (two-way)
• Marques Bolden (two-way)
• Total: $8,292,951

Dead/retained salary

• None

Player options

• Davis Bertans ($16,000,000): Bird rights
  • Bertans technically holds an early termination option. If he opts in, his salary will be partially guaranteed for $5,250,000.
• Total: $16,000,000
  

Team options

• JT Thor ($1,988,598): Bird rights
  • Thor’s salary would remain non-guaranteed if his option is exercised.
• Total: $1,988,598

Restricted free agents

• None

Two-way free agents

• Amari Bailey: Non-Bird rights

Draft picks

• No. 6 overall pick ($7,510,680)
• No. 42 overall pick (no cap hold)
• Total (cap holds): $7,510,680

Extension-eligible players

• Tre Mann (rookie scale)
• Cody Martin (veteran)
• JT Thor (veteran)
  • Extension-eligible until June 30 (or beyond, if his team option is exercised).

Note: Unless otherwise indicated, these players are eligible for extensions beginning in July.

Unrestricted free agents

• Miles Bridges ($15,050,470 cap hold): Bird rights
• Total (cap holds): $15,050,470

Other cap holds

• Arnoldas Kulboka ($1,867,722 cap hold)
• Scottie Lewis ($1,867,722 cap hold)
• Total (cap holds): $3,735,444

Note: The cap holds for these players are on the Hornets’ books from prior seasons because they haven’t been renounced. They can’t be used in a sign-and-trade deal.

Cap exceptions available

Note: The Hornets project to operate under the cap. They would have to renounce two trade exceptions – worth $3,585,600 and $442,826 – in order to use cap room. If they were to operate over the cap, they’d lose the room exception and would have access to the mid-level exception ($12,859,000) and bi-annual exception ($4,681,000).

• Room exception: $8,006,000