Charlotte’s scoring race next season looks wide open, but the Hornets may not need long to find a front-runner.
With LaMelo Ball and Miles Bridges gone this summer, Charlotte has to replace 37.2 points per game from its starting lineup. That kind of volume doesn’t just disappear quietly. It gets redistributed, and it should leave Brandon Miller, Kon Knueppel, and Coby White all with real shots to sit near the top of the team scoring chart.
Miller is the cleanest answer on paper. He was the only Hornet to top 20 points per game last season, finishing at 20.1 while working back from a shoulder injury and playing alongside Ball, who soaked up a huge share of the offense.
His 16.1 field goal attempts, 20.1 points per game, and overall usage should all rise now that Ball and Bridges are out of the picture. If Charlotte’s offense stays on the same fast, make-the-next-play track, Miller should get the most attempts night after night.
That makes him the safest bet to lead the team.
Still, there’s a case for Knueppel. He finished just behind Miller, and one view of this situation is that the sharpshooter might handle the pressure on the perimeter better than Miller and bring enough physicality to finish inside.
If he grows into a steady three-level scorer, he could become the player Charlotte builds around. The appeal there is consistency, especially with Miller having shown some hot-and-cold stretches.
White is the other name that keeps coming up. He is not a like-for-like replacement for Ball, and nobody is pretending he is on that same level as a passer.
But he has scored in bunches before, and Charlotte’s free-flowing, egalitarian offense should give him plenty of chances to attack. With the ball in his hands often and shooting around him to open driving lanes, White has a path to a career year in 2026-27.
In the end, the Hornets’ top scoring line may come down to a tight cluster. Miller, Knueppel, and White all look capable of landing in the 18-to-22-point-per-game range. But if Charlotte’s usage trends follow last season’s pattern, Miller still looks like the most likely name at the top.
In Other News...
Hornets Fans Still Can't Escape One Offseason Question
The offseason makeover in Charlotte brought a very different look to the backcourt and the wing rotation, with draft capital, Coby White and veteran help changing the shape of the roster. The Hornets also added Kon Knueppel with the fourth pick in 2025, and he quickly justified the move by giving them a steady rookie presence, while Grayson Allen and Dennis Schroder arrived to add experience and Hannes Steinbach came in at No. 14 to fight for minutes.
Even with those additions, the conversation around the Hornets keeps circling back to the same bigger-picture question: how much long-term traction can this version of the team find after moving on from its most established stars? Charlotte has clearly tried to reset with a blend of youth, shooting and veteran stability, but the real test now is whether the new core can turn all that offseason movement into something more than a fresh start on paper. [Read more 🡒]