Charlotte is about to turn a page it never really imagined turning this soon.
On Thursday night, the Hornets will take the floor for their first game in more than six years without LaMelo Ball on the roster, even if it’s only Summer League. That alone says plenty about how much has changed in Charlotte - and how fast.
The move comes after ESPN’s Shams Charania reported shortly after round two ended that the Hornets were listening to trade offers for Ball and had engaged with several teams. Minnesota, the same team that passed on Ball in the 2020 NBA Draft, made the strongest push to pair him with Anthony Edwards. By the next morning, Charlotte had sent Ball to the Timberwolves for Naz Reid and several future draft picks.
It’s a stunning end to a run that once looked like the start of something bigger.
Ball arrived in Charlotte as the third pick in the 2020 NBA Draft, after the Hornets landed there with 6% odds to move up to No. 1 and 7.2% odds to jump into the top four. Minnesota took Anthony Edwards first, Golden State grabbed James Wiseman second, and Charlotte stayed put at No. 3, where it selected Ball as Kemba Walker’s successor.
That succession mattered. A year earlier, Walker had left after eight seasons in Charlotte for Boston, where the Celtics wanted him to fill the Kyrie Irving role and grow alongside Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. The Hornets got Terry Rozier back in that deal, and he arrived after a rough year following a postseason run in which he averaged 16.5 points per game.
Ball’s first two seasons gave Charlotte exactly what it had been missing. He won Rookie of the Year, made the 2022 NBA All-Star team, and helped push the Hornets into the Play-In Tournament in both years. Alongside Miles Bridges, he gave the franchise real momentum and made the team look like one of the league’s rising groups.
Then everything went sideways.
Bridges’ suspension wiped out the entire 2022-23 season for him, and the Hornets spiraled from there, going 67-179 over the next three seasons. That stretch ended with a sub-20 win season in 2025, a brutal reminder of how quickly the promise had faded.
Still, there was reason for optimism entering 2025-26. Charlotte had added Brandon Miller and Kon Knueppel with top-four picks over the previous three drafts, giving Ball and Bridges more help. Jeff Peterson was entering his second year running the front office, Charles Lee was heading into his second season as head coach, and the organization finally looked like it had some structure.
The season didn’t start cleanly. Ball and Miller both missed time, and Charlotte was just 16-28 on January 21. But the starting group of Ball, Miller, Knueppel, Bridges, and Moussa Diabaté was producing the best net rating of any five-man lineup in the NBA, a sign that the pieces were starting to fit.
Then came the surge.
Over the next three months, the Hornets won 28 games and lost only 10. Ball drove the offense during that run, and in the franchise’s first home postseason game in a decade, he hit the game-winner. Charlotte got all the way to needing one more victory to reach the playoffs for the first time in 10 years, but Orlando shut that door on its home floor.
Even with that disappointment, the mood around the franchise had shifted. The Hornets had a young core, a front office with a plan, and a pile of draft assets that suggested bigger things could still be ahead.
Peterson added to that stockpile in the draft by selecting Washington’s Hannes Steinbach and Texas Tech’s Christian Anderson. Then came the Ball trade, and with it, a much sharper break from the path Charlotte had been on.
For a fan base that watched Ball deliver Rookie of the Year honors, an All-Star appearance, and some of the franchise’s most electric moments this century, the reaction is bound to be mixed. He never got the Hornets where they wanted to go, but he did give them hope again after years of losing.
Now Charlotte is betting on a different future. Brandon Miller, Kon Knueppel, and the rest of the young group Peterson has assembled will carry that burden instead.
The Ball era is over, and the Hornets have made their stance plain: they no longer believe the road forward includes him. Like Walker’s exit at the start of the decade, Ball’s departure opens another chapter in Charlotte - one the Hornets hope ends with the Larry O’Brien parading the city streets.
In Other News...
Hornets Just Sent A Surprising Message About Kon Knueppel
Kon Knueppels first Summer League appearance with the Hornets came with a twist, and it said plenty about how Charlotte views the rookie. Instead of sitting with teammates or getting his work in on the floor, Knueppel was placed right alongside the coaching staff during the opener, giving him a front-row seat to the way the game is managed in real time.
It was an unusual setup for a player just starting his NBA journey, but it also lined up with the Hornets clear belief in his basketball IQ. Charlotte has not said why it made the call, leaving the arrangement a little mysterious, but the move gave Knueppel a chance to absorb substitutions, adjustments and strategy from a different angle than most young players ever get this early. [Read more 🡒]
Jeff Peterson Just Addressed The Hornets Backlash Head On
Jeff Peterson spent part of the Hornets latest public moment trying to calm a fan base that has been rattled by the franchises direction, and his message was less about chasing a quick fix than about building something sturdier. The executive framed the teams approach around long-term sustainability, a stance that fits the way Charlotte has tried to position its reset as more than a short-term reaction.
There is still plenty of skepticism around that plan, especially with the kind of flexibility the Hornets now have to shape the roster in the months ahead. Between a sizable trade exception and a collection of draft assets, Charlotte has the tools to keep maneuvering, but the real question is whether the front office can turn those pieces into a team that feels credible before the frustration around this move fully fades. [Read more 🡒]