COLUMN: Can Hornets follow Panthers’ lead and end playoff drought?

I admittedly haven’t watched many NBA games in recent years, but the Charlotte Hornets are pretty hard to ignore right now.

In fact, I even watched a couple of Charlotte’s games late last week — its wins over the Dallas Mavericks and San Antonio Spurs were shown on WSOC-TV and Amazon Prime Video, respectively — and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. The Hornets have a bevy of young talent, and their current product is highly entertaining.

Monday’s 102-95 home victory over the New Orleans Pelicans ran the Hornets’ winning streak to seven games — the last time they won that many games in a row was March 2016 — as they improved to 23-28 on the season, already more wins than in either of the previous two full 82-game campaigns. Furthermore, Charlotte entered Thursday’s late road game against the Houston Rockets with a 12-5 record since Jan. 3.

The Hornets have found their greatest success when LaMelo Ball, Kon Knueppel, Brandon Miller, Miles Bridges, and Moussa Diabate start together, posting a 13-1 record in such instances. Bridges is the elder statesman of the group at 27 years old, while every other starter is 24 or younger.

Miller leads the team in scoring at 20.6 points per game, and he’s also averaging 4.7 rebounds and 3.4 assists per contest while shooting 43.1% from the field, 36.6% from 3-point range, and 87.9% at the free-throw line. And Miller was even better in the four games played from Jan. 26 through Feb. 1, earning NBA Eastern Conference Player of the Week honors after averaging 26.3 ppg, 5.8 rpg, and 2.3 apg on 51.6% from the field, 50.0% from behind the arc, and a perfect 25-for-25 at the foul line.

Ball (19.1 ppg, 7.5 apg, 4.9 rpg), Knueppel (18.7 ppg, 5.5 rpg, 3.6 apg), and Bridges (18.3 ppg, 6.1 rpg, 3.5 apg) are all averaging over 18 ppg as well, while backup guard Collin Sexton (14.2 ppg, 3.7 apg, 1.9 rpg) was Charlotte’s remaining double-figure scorer before being traded to the Chicago Bulls on Wednesday as part of a deal that landed former UNC guard Coby White (18.6 ppg, 4.7 apg, 3.7 rpg). Reserve center Ryan Kalkbrenner (8.6 ppg, 6.1 rpg) and the aforementioned Diabate (8.4 ppg, 8.5 rpg, 1.5 apg) have also played key roles for the Hornets, who were the only team in the NBA to rank in the top five in offense and defense in January while leading the Eastern Conference with 11 wins.

Knueppel — who is shooting a team-high 42.5% from 3-point range — has been the NBA Eastern Conference Rookie of the Month every month this season, and his stiffest competition for the NBA Rookie of the Year award is former Duke teammate Cooper Flagg of the Dallas Mavericks. Flagg has been named NBA Western Conference Rookie of the Month every month.

Nonetheless, Knueppel is one of only five players in the NBA to knock down at least 160 3-pointers during the 2025-26 season, with his 166 treys in 50 games matching Stephen Curry’s 80-game total as a rookie for the Golden State Warriors in 2009-10. Not only that, but Knueppel is on pace to break the rookie record of 206 made 3s achieved by the Sacramento Kings’ Keegan Murray in 2022-23.

Kalkbrenner is a rookie as well, and prior to Wednesday’s trade, only two members of the Hornets’ 18-player roster — 33-year-old guard Pat Connaughton and 35-year-old center Mason Plumlee, the latter of whom was also traded on Wednesday — were older than 27. Additionally, Charlotte’s average age was 24.8.

But despite their youth, the Hornets look like a well-oiled machine as of late. Second-year head coach Charles Lee — who previously won NBA titles as an assistant with the Milwaukee Bucks in 2021 and the Boston Celtics in 2024 — has them playing at a high level.

The NBA Eastern Conference Coach of the Month for January, the 41-year-old Lee is the sixth-youngest head coach in the league. And at the moment, he absolutely looks like the long-term answer in Charlotte.

Speaking of Charlotte, the NFL’s Carolina Panthers participated in their first postseason game in eight years when they hosted the Los Angeles Rams last month. So, could the Hornets soon join them as another professional sports team from the Queen City to end a lengthy playoff drought?

Only time will tell. However, the Hornets appear to be on the right track, and I hope to see them playing playoff basketball for the first time in a decade when April rolls around.

If nothing else, they’re certainly creating some buzz.

See what I did there?