The Charlotte Hornets still haven’t cracked the NBA’s Christmas Day stage, and this year’s schedule only sharpened the sting.
The league unveiled its December 25 slate with a handful of familiar draws. Spurs-Knicks stands out as a Finals rematch.
Celtics-Heat brings together rivals. The 76ers, now with LeBron James, will face the Lakers, his former team.
Thunder-Timberwolves also made the cut, with Oklahoma City described as arguably the best team in the sport and Minnesota as a perennial playoff team that might’ve gotten significantly better.
That last matchup is where the pain really lands for Charlotte. The Timberwolves would have had a strong case for Christmas on their own, but with LaMelo Ball in town, they become even more box-office, which helped push them onto the holiday slate.
And that is the cruel twist for the Hornets. Ball was part of a team that, as the source puts it, was must-watch, had the best offense in the sport and finished the season sizzling. Yet the Hornets were left behind, with Ball making the Christmas Day NBA schedule for the first time only after he had moved on.
The broader point hasn’t changed: Charlotte has never played on Christmas Day, and the league has never really treated the Hornets like a team that demanded holiday spotlight. There have been no major rivalries to lean on and no signature revenge games to sell.
For now, the drought rolls on. It may not last forever, but this year’s schedule made the wait feel even harsher.
In Other News...
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 🡒]
Brandon Miller Just Took On A Bigger Hornets Reality
Brandon Miller has already become the centerpiece of the Hornets next chapter, and the latest sign of that is as plain as a video game rating. In NBA 2K27, Miller comes in at 85 overall and stands as Charlottes highest-rated player, a neat snapshot of how quickly the teams hierarchy has shifted after moving on from LaMelo Ball. After a season in which Miller played 65 games and put up 20.2 points, 4.9 rebounds and 3.3 assists per night, the Hornets are now looking at him less like a promising piece and more like the player around whom the roster has to make sense.
That reality brings real contract stakes with it this summer. Charlotte may look to work out a rookie-scale extension with Miller, but if that does not happen, he would be headed toward restricted free agency next summer. For a franchise trying to reset its identity, the timing matters, especially with Miller and Kon Knueppel now viewed as the faces of the team. The Hornets have already accepted that their future looks different than it did a year ago, and Millers next move will say plenty about how quickly that future can take shape. [Read more 🡒]