Grading the Hornets' Season After Ugly Play-In Tournament Exit Against Magic
All good things must come to an end. On Friday, the Hornets learned that the hard way.
One of the hottest teams in the NBA since January, Charlotte entered the play-in tournament with a ton of momentum and more attention than the franchise has enjoyed since the Kemba Walker days. The first play-in game marked another big step by a young roster, as they outlasted an experienced Heat team in a wild overtime affair. That left Friday's play-in game as the final obstacle between the Hornets and their first playoff appearance since 2016, and with the reeling Magic as their opponent there were plenty who already had Charlotte written in as the No. 8 seed in the East.
But that's why they play the games. Despite seemingly having everything going for them, the Hornets flopped. Hard. They went down by 30 points in the first half against Orlando and never recovered. They got bullied by a larger, more physical Magic team and did not at all seem ready for the moment. Star LaMelo Ball scored only two points in the first half before finishing with 23 points. The hero from the Miami game, Coby White, was invisible all evening. Standout rookie Kon Knueppel's play-in struggles continued and he finished with only 11 points on 3-for-11 shooting. While the Hornets put forth a better effort in the second half it was already too late and the Magic finally finished the job, winning 121–91 and officially eliminating Charlotte.
It was definitely a letdown to end the most exciting Buzz City season in many years. But how much does it overshadow the progress made by this Hornets team? Let's break down the good and bad of their season, finishing with an overall grade.
The Good: Adding Kon Knueppel unlocked the Hornets' talented core
The play-in loss should and will leave a bad taste in everybody's mouth heading into the offseason. But by and large, this was an extremely successful season in Charlotte.
Hitting on Knueppel with the fourth pick in the 2025 NBA draft is a franchise-altering draft success. The Duke product has the makings of the next great sharpshooter in the league, becoming the first rookie ever to lead all players in made three-pointers. No deep threat has ever found this level of immediate success and the Hornets are extremely glad to have him be part of the core going forward. The mere threat of his shooting opens up the floor for all the actions they want to run-and this could be the worst version of Knueppel we'll see. The way he faded down the stretch was disappointing, but not terribly surprising given most first-year NBA players hit a wall while battling through the grueling regular season for the first time.
Of course, he couldn't have thrived the way he did without the talents of Ball and Brandon Miller making things easier for him. Ball had the best season of his career yet as an all-around player, averaging 20.1 points and 7.1 assists per night while giving his best effort defensively each night. He's long been a highlight reel player, but that failed to translate to successful basketball until this year; Ball harnessing his immense talent to create for his teammates was a constant theme during Charlotte's hot stretch starting in January. Miller, meanwhile, showed how dangerous he can be as a tertiary scorer in putting up career-high efficiency numbers and cracking just over 20 points per night himself. Most importantly for both of the Hornets' stars, they were healthy-both appeared in at least 65 games this year after missing much of last season.
Finally, coach Charles Lee looks like one of the brighter young coaches the NBA has to offer. His second year at the helm seemed on the brink of disaster when the calendar flipped to Jan. 1; at the time Charlotte was 11–22 and 12th in the East. At that point Lee got his players healthy and bought into his Celtics-like system of constantly creating three-point opportunities. Most impressively he got everybody to play defense, the first time in a while Hornets fans have seen that kind of effort on the floor. The result? A 33–16 sprint over the final three months of the year that gave the Hornets a legit shot at a playoff appearance. It takes a village to pull off that kind of turnaround but Lee deserves the lion's share of the credit. His coaching and system brought the best out of already-talented players in Ball and Miller while unearthing new ones like Moussa Diabaté, who looks like a cornerstone at center.
It was a breakout season in Charlotte both on the court and the sideline.
The Bad: Ending the year on an awful loss is on everybody's shoulders
For all the praise of Lee above, he also deserves blame for how flat his team came out in the play-in. Just losing wouldn't have been that big of a deal. But Charlotte got ran off the court in the first 24 minutes. A youthful roster didn't seem prepared at all for the physicality Orlando brought, and the 41-year-old coach had no adjustments ready to go in a do-or-die game. It marked a big disappointment after the tremendous play of the final three months. Not just for Lee, but for his stars, too. In elimination games the biggest names are supposed to play their best, and the Ball-Miller-Knueppel trio was completely absent.
More broadly, it was not a good year for some other Hornets draft picks beyond Knueppel. Liam McNeeley, the 29th pick in last year's draft, appeared in only 31 games for Charlotte and averaged 4.3 points per contest. The sixth pick in the 2024 draft, Tidjane Salaün, is looking like a huge bust with only 37 games played (in part due to a calf strain) this season as a sophomore. Both are young players with room to grow but it is usually obvious when draft picks are NBA-caliber and neither has indicated as such yet.
Lastly, the first 33 games of the Hornets' season were terrible. In part due to injuries, yes, but if Charlotte were even a little bit better to begin the year the team might've avoided the play-in entirely. Not starting off the year in a huge hole will be a big talking point this offseason.
The Grade: A-
But overall this was as good a season the Hornets could have hoped for, especially given where they were at the turn of the new year.
Their star talent proved worthy of the label. The future looks very bright with every member of the core in their early 20s with obvious room to grow in their games. The coach (also young) looks like a keeper. More than any of that, Charlotte showed true dominance for the first time... ever? There have been a lot of good Hornets teams since they moved back to North Carolina but few could claim they dominated opponents.
These Hornets did. At one point during their scalding stretch in 2026 Charlotte won six straight games by 15 or more points. The last team to do that? The 2017–18 Warriors. Over the course of the year the Hornets beat the last three NBA champs (the Thunder, Celtics and Nuggets) by 20 points each. According to the NBA it was the first time a team had accomplished that feat in over 60 years. And all that with a roster pretty similar to the one that finished with 19 freaking wins 12 months prior!
The final game was a huge flop, no getting around that. But it was a wonderful year in Charlotte that should inspire immense confidence about what's to come.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Grading the Hornets' Season After Ugly Play-In Tournament Exit Against Magic.
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This story was originally published April 17, 2026 at 8:15 PM.