The Charlotte Hornets made their move this offseason and sent away the face of the franchise. After six seasons, LaMelo Ball is now playing for another NBA team, and the split is going to be hard to ignore when the games start piling up in 2026-27.
Ball is almost certain to deliver another borderline All-NBA season. Charlotte, meanwhile, is almost certain to feel the absence.
The Hornets probably won’t reach 44 wins again. They likely won’t spend a long stretch sitting atop the NBA’s net rating charts.
They almost certainly won’t have the league’s best five-man unit.
That’s exactly when the noise will kick in.
Fans are going to hammer Jeff Peterson and the front office, and that reaction will make sense. Even the most skeptical observer of this deal has to admit the optics will be brutal when Ball is stacking big nights elsewhere and the Hornets are taking a step back. I’m telling myself that as much as anyone else.
But the bigger point is this: don’t rush to stamp a winner or loser on the trade next season. Charlotte knew it was moving out a really good player, and it understood that a small dip in the short term was part of the package. That was the plan, for better or worse.
The return was never just about 2026-27. It was about draft capital, and that part won’t pay off for years. It was also about financial flexibility, which won’t show up right away either.
The real test comes later, when the Hornets have Brandon Miller and Kon Knueppel extended and more money to work with on the market. That’s when the logic behind the deal starts to reveal itself.
Until then, the comparisons are going to be relentless. Every LaMelo Ball triple-double.
Every highlight. Every Minnesota Timberwolves win.
Online, the “who won this trade” graphics will come fast, and Ball’s numbers will make it look like Charlotte got stripped bare.
Still, this was never a bet on 2026-27 alone. It was a long view, built around the idea that Ball’s health would become an issue over time and that the picks and flexibility would eventually matter.
So yes, the criticism next season is coming. It’s going to be loud. Just don’t pretend the Hornets didn’t see that coming.
In Other News...
Hornets Latest Roster Move Comes With An Unexpected Greensboro Catch
The Hornets kept churning through their offseason roster this week, adding another name as part of a familiar pattern of sign-and-waive moves designed to help steer players toward Greensboro. It has become a useful way for Charlotte to stock the Swarm with talent while keeping flexibility at the NBA level, and the latest addition brings a guard with recent G League and Canadian Elite Basketball League experience into the mix.
Jarkel Joiner is the player at the center of this one, though getting him to the Swarm is not quite as simple as handing him a jersey. His G League rights are still tied up with the Raptors 905, which means Charlotte would need to deal for those rights before he can suit up in Greensboro, leaving one more step unresolved in a process that has become a regular offseason wrinkle for the Hornets. [Read more 🡒]
How Kobe Pushed For The Lakers Before A Draft Night Twist
Arn Tellem, Kobe Bryants original agent, recently revisited one of the most famous draft-night maneuvers in NBA history, a sequence that changed the course of the league and still echoes through Charlottes draft lore. The New Jersey Nets were set to take Bryant with the eighth pick in 1996, but Tellem helped steer the conversation toward the Lakers, where Jerry West was working to make sure Bryant landed in Los Angeles.
Wests answer was to line up a trade with Charlotte for the 13th pick, a move that kept Bryant within reach when the Lakers feared the draft board might not break their way. What followed became one of the defining swings of the era, as Bryants arrival set the stage for the championship core he later formed with Shaquille ONeal, while the Hornets place in the deal remained one of the drafts most enduring footnotes. [Read more 🡒]
Hornets Keep Tweaking One Roster Battle Fans Usually Overlook
Roster shuffling at the back end of a teams depth chart usually does not make much noise, but the Hornets have been making another one of those quiet adjustments. Charlotte signed guard Jarkel Joiner and waived Kyle Mangas as part of the kind of late-summer transaction that rarely changes the big picture yet still matters for players trying to stick in the organization.
The move also fits the familiar pattern of Charlotte working with its G League pipeline, where these sign-and-waive decisions can be tied to Exhibit 10 bonus setups and the Greensboro Swarm. For a team trying to keep options open around the edges of the roster, these are the sorts of transactions that often look minor now and matter more when the regular season starts sorting out who stays close by and who does not. [Read more 🡒]