Nobody in the NBA has done nondescript quite like the Charlotte Hornets, and nobody has done it for as long. By long in this context we mean "forever." They have been the quintessential (and quit-essential, if truth be told) member of the league's ultra-forgettable Southeast Division since the franchise's second origin in '04-05, reliably turning purple and teal into washed-out gray on a yearly basis. The first Charlotte NBA team became what we now know as the New Orleans Pelicans when they left town in 2002, with all the vacuum-packed irrelevance that implies; the current incarnation began as an expansion team and has been the worst team in the league by aggregate record since, Sacramento and Washington included. The new iteration of the Bobcats/Hornets have played fewer playoff games than anyone else, been eliminated in the first round each time, and managed to further besmirch the name of Michael Jordan in the process. It can fairly be said that convincing Jordan to trade in his ownership for a run at NASCAR has been the franchise's most noteworthy achievement.
But noteworthy isn't what the Hornets do. Mostly it is their invisibility in an invisible division that sets them apart from, well, nothing, really. Wednesday night marked just the second time in the past nine years that they have even been above .500 this late in a season. They are on the verge of knowing the sweet life provided by the play-in tournament in large part because Milwaukee stinks and everyone below them is turbo-tanking; if they make it, Charlotte's season will include an 83rd game for the first time in a decade.
That fact, taken on its own, speaks only to the number of teams in the league currently forced to be horrible by management fiat. What makes these Hornets worth your time, at least for the few minutes you spend plowing through this thicket of arglebargle, is that they have lately been both quite good and quite fun to watch. In a league dominated by dissatisfaction from top to bottom, in which only Nico Harrison's besmirched reputation is even trying to make a comeback, the Hornets are kicking ass and leaving the name-taking to others. And that's saying something for a team that is 32-31 as dawn broke and tied with the (say it with us now) nondescript Atlanta Hawks.
The difference is how Charlotte got to 32-31. They did that by having the third-best record in basketball since Christmas, 22-11, and an even better 16-3 record since January 22. The difference is in their past six games, in which they became just the second team in NBA history to win six consecutive games by 15 or more points. The difference is that last night they throttled a good team, the Boston Celtics, by 29 points, on the road. And so the real difference is that, maybe for the first time ever, they can stake a claim at being relevant to the rest of the nation.
The Hornets do not possess a true must-see player, to be sure. Kon Knueppel is having the Rookie of the Year season that will probably be given to his much more famous former Duke teammate Cooper Flagg, but you're not likely to set aside an entire evening to soak in a bunch of Knueppel jumpers unless you are already a certified hoophead. Brandon Miller, the second pick three drafts ago, is emerging as a forceful truth in a sport full of liars. The other player whose name you'd know and play you would be likely to notice is LaMelo Ball, although that's only really important if you're a pedestrian.
Yet here they are, light years from this well-earned festival of dismay, trying to make the play-in tournament feel a bit less like the gateway to tanking it has actually become. Their resurgence is based in significant part on a diligent defense—the Hornets have dropped their points allowed per game number by nearly seven since the first of the year—but let's be honest, you're not here for a deep dive on why the Charlotte Hornets are the hottest tied-for-ninth-place team in the business. You're here for the free luggage, and we're all out. Better luck next time, Pookie.
No, the Hornets in their totality are the story; the notable part is that they are actually making NBA fans notice them at all, which feels like a genuine first. There is a perceptible joy and even swagger here that could not be taught by their forebears because, well, who would be able to? Since the first of the year, the Hornets—the same Hornets addressed above—have the best net rating, best offensive rating, sixth-best defensive rating, and best three-point percentage in the league. At the moment any sane fan would much rather watch them make a run in the East than any of their Southeast brethren, or for that matter the Raptors or 76ers, if only because a new toy sells itself.
The Hornets nee Bobcats, have toiled in witness protection-level anonymity throughout their total history, including all the parts of Hornets I that did not involve a young Larry Johnson. Charlotte's NBA franchises, the one that left and the one that replaced it, have given their fan base 10 years of playoff basketball in 35 years—there were those three years between Hornets I relocating to Nawlins and Hornets II being rushed on line three years hence, during which the fan-base presumably engaged in some difficult but necessary self-reflection—and during that time they have won only one playoff series against a team outside the Southeast, which we have told you already has long been the NBA's Phantom Zone. Fighting their way out of that as they have over the last months isn't the same thing as winning a playoff series, but it is that rarest of Hornets-based things—not nothing
This is Charlotte's time because, well, everybody should have at least one. Even the Wizards have had one, but that was in the late 1970s and they were the Bullets then. That Charlotte's Time has arrived in March rather than April, or better yet May or June, is scuba gear for another dive, to be fair. You have to be noticeable before anyone sees you walk, and going 16-3 and kicking the Celtics' collective ass in the Garden will draw you some eyeballs. How long this run lasts is up to the gods, but the gods have never been forced to pay heed to these guys before. It should be fascinating to see how they handle the pressure. Not the Hornets. The gods.
