After eight seasons in Charlotte, Kemba Walker was moving on.
He would be headed to Boston, where the Celtics were looking to him to be the replacement to Kyrie Irving, and spend the prime of his career alongside the developing Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. In return, the Charlotte Hornets would receive 24 year old Terry Rozier, who was coming off a down year after a statement postseason run where he averaged 16.5 points per game.
During the 2019-20 season, Walker was named an All-Star starter for a serious title contender in Boston, while the Hornets were watching the suprising breakout of guard Devonte Graham. Although the Hornets’ season was ended abrubtly, there was still one thing to look forward to: the NBA Draft Lottery.
Charlotte sat with 6% odds to jump up to the first overall pick, which would allow them to select one of Georgia’s Anthony Edwards, Memphis’ James Wiseman, or LaMelo Ball out of the NBL. WIth a 7.2% chance of jumping up into the top four, luck was on the Hornets’ side after letting go of their long time franchise player a year prior:
The Hornets would pick third in the 2020 NBA Draft.
The Minnesota Timberwolves took Edwards with the first pick, and the Golden State Warriors selected James Wiseman to kickstart the second act of their dynasty. The board fell the Hornets way, and they took Kemba Walker’s successor with the third pick: LaMelo Ball.
Ball’s first two years were excellent. During the two seasons, the Hornets appeared in the Play-In Tournament, Ball won Rookie of the Year, and he was named to the 2022 NBA All-Star game. The Hornets looked to be one of the league’s up-and-coming teams, with the duo of Ball and Miles Bridges turning heads around the league.
After going 76-78 over the course of the 2020-21 to 2021-22 season, with excitement growing around the Hornets franchise as they search for their first playoff appearance since 2016, things took a drastic turn.
Starting with suspension to Miles Bridges that saw him miss the entirety of the 2022-23 season, the Hornets went 67-179 over the following three seasons, capping it off with a sub-20 win season in 2025.
Despite this, there was still some excitement headed into the 2025-26 season.
The Hornets had accumulated two top-four picks over the previous three seasons, adding Alabama’s Brandon Miller and Duke’s Kon Knueppel to their core of Ball and Bridges. They had an ownership group headed into their third season, a front office led by Jeff Peterson that was going into year two, and a head coach in Charles Lee that was also going into year two.
With a rocky start to the season that saw Ball and Miller miss several games, the Hornets were just 16-28 as of January 21st. Still, they had a starting five of Ball, Miller, Knueppel, Bridges, and Moussa Diabaté who were clicking, boasting the best net rating of any five man lineup in the NBA.
As if a switch were flipped, the Hornets season changed. Over the course of the following three months, the Hornets won 28 games, losing just 10 in the process. Ball was the offensive engine behind this league dominance, and in the franchise’s first home postseason game in a decade, Ball took and made the game-winning basket.
With just one win needed to reach the playoffs for the first time in a decade, the Hornets were headed to Orlando needing just one win to get in. Disappointingly, Orlando took care of business on their home court, and it would be another year until Hornets fans could potentially see playoff basketball.
For the first time in a long time in Charlotte, the vibes were high. Not only did the playoffs appear to be a realistic destination in the coming years, but the haul of draft picks and young players that Jeff Peterson acquired pointed to potential title contention eventually.
After a draft from Peterson that saw the Hornets select Washington’s Hannes Steinbach and Texas Tech’s Christian Anderson, it seemed as if the Hornets were looking to make the push to be a playoff team in the Eastern Conference this upcoming season.
Shortly after round two ended, ESPN’s Shams Charania dropped shocking news: the Hornets were listening to, and engaged, in trade offers with several teams for LaMelo Ball. Most notably, the very Timberwolves who passed on Ball just a few years prior were making a heavy push to pair him with Anthony Edwards.
In just the following morning after Shams’ report, the Hornets dealt Ball to Minnesota for a package of Naz Reid and several future draft picks.
On Thursday night, the Hornets will play their first game in more than six years (even if it is only Summer League) without LaMelo Ball on the roster. Instead of building around one of the NBA’s most electrifying young guards, Charlotte is now placing its future in the hands of Brandon Miller, Kon Knueppel, and the young core Jeff Peterson has assembled.
It’s a new era in Charlotte, and one the fanbase appears torn over. Ball’s tenure fell short of the postseason aspirations that were developed in the first few years, but it also helped produce some of the franchise’s most exciting moments this century. From Rookie of the Year honors to an All-Star appearance and helping restore hope after years of losing, Ball gave Hornets fans a reason to believe again.
While it is unclear as to whether or not the deal was the right decision, moving on from Ball made one thing clear from the Hornets: they no longer believe that their path to success will come with LaMelo on the roster. Just as the departure of Kemba Walker started a new chapter at the beginning of the decade, Ball’s exit also marks the start of a new era, one that Peterson and the Hornets hope will end with the Larry O’Brien parading the city streets.
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