Brandon Miller is the top-rated Charlotte Hornets player in NBA 2K27, and the game has him pegged at an 85 overall.
That rating lines up with what Miller put on tape last season. He played 65 games for Charlotte and averaged 20.2 points, 4.9 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game while shooting 43.5% from the field, 38.3% from 3-point range and 89.2% at the free-throw line.
Miller’s role is only getting bigger in Charlotte. The Hornets can work out a rookie-scale extension with him this summer. If that deal doesn’t get done, he would head into restricted free agency next summer.
The roster around him is shifting, too. Next season, Charlotte is expected to start Coby White, Miller, Kon Knueppel, Naz Reid and Moussa Diabaté. Miller and Knueppel are now the faces of the franchise after the Hornets sent Ball to the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Peterson said he and Charles Lee made sure to address the human side of that move with both players. "I’m very comfortable," Peterson said.
"[Hornets head coach] Charles [Lee] and I had a conversation with both of them knowing that these trades can be challenging. Sometimes I do think we forget that we’re human beings dealing with this stuff - lives and its emotions.
Those guys are friends and they are in the locker room every day. At the same time, Charles and I kind of explained, We believe in you guys, too.
You guys are here. We want to continue to see you guys grow.
This is going to challenge you guys. You guys got to continue to get better.'
We wouldn’t have made that trade if we didn’t feel comfortable with what they can continue to be developing into."
Charlotte hasn’t reached the playoffs since 2016, and Year 1 of the post-Ball era will be a revealing one for a team leaning harder than ever on Miller. He already has career averages of 19.0 points, 4.6 rebounds and 3.0 assists per game, and he entered the league as the No. 2 overall pick in the 2023 NBA Draft.
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Hornets Get A Painful Christmas Reminder About Their NBA Standing
Christmas Day has long been the NBAs showcase stage, the sort of calendar slot where contenders, stars and rivalry games get the spotlight. The Hornets have never been part of it, and this years schedule only sharpened that reminder as the league lined up high-profile teams while one of Charlottes most recognizable former faces, LaMelo Ball, was set to be featured elsewhere.
For a franchise still searching for the kind of national pull that earns those holiday invitations, the omission says plenty about where it sits in the league pecking order. Even with a player as marketable as Ball having once been the centerpiece in Charlotte, the Hornets remain outside the group the NBA trusts to carry one of its biggest regular-season days, and that gap is hard to miss when the Christmas slate drops. [Read more 🡒]
Hornets Enter 2026 With One Defining Question About Their Core
As Charlotte heads toward the 2026-27 season, the conversation around the roster is already centered on the same thing: which pieces can truly anchor the next version of this team. The Hornets have a core that includes rookies and younger holdovers, and the early evaluations are being shaped by Summer League flashes, past-season production and the natural hope that a few promising stretches can grow into something sturdier.
Still, the biggest challenge is separating what looked good in a small sample from what can actually carry over once the games matter. Summer League can point to strengths and reveal growth areas, but it can also mislead if it gets treated like a final verdict, which is why the Hornets next step is less about celebrating individual moments than figuring out which players belong in the long-term answer. [Read more 🡒]