The Hornets lose LaMelo Ball but keep the three players who made them good

The Charlotte Hornets were better last season than their record says, and this summer they let go of a player our numbers rated far above average. LaMelo Ball is gone to the Minnesota Timberwolves and Miles Bridges to the Phoenix Suns. Naz Reid, Grayson Allen, Royce O'Neale and Dennis Schroder are in. The question for 2026-27 is whether Brandon Miller, Kon Knueppel and Moussa Diabate are now good enough to carry a team that was already close.

Charlotte went 44-38 and finished 9th in the East, outside the playoffs, yet outscored opponents by 4.9 points per 100 possessions. That margin is the profile of a winning team, and the record did not quite match it. The Hornets did not need a rebuild. They needed a few more wins, and the summer reshaped the roster anyway.

Charlotte was 37-18 with Kon Knueppel, Brandon Miller and Moussa Diabate all playing, and 7-20 when one of them was out. Grant Williams did not play in 45 of the team's 82 games, Brandon Miller in 17 and Ryan Kalkbrenner in 13. In the last 30 games, the Hornets went 20-10.

What left

Ball is the big loss. He played 72 games at 28 minutes a night, and our impact rating, which counts the points per 100 possessions a player adds over an average one, had him at 3.61, far above average. Josh Green, now with the Utah Jazz, was a quieter plus (1.41 in 15.6 minutes over 58 games), and he is gone too.

The other exits hurt less on our numbers. Bridges played 77 games at 31 minutes but graded slightly below average (-0.34). Collin Sexton, now with the Los Angeles Lakers, posted a -0.78 in 22.4 minutes, and K.J. Simpson a -2.35 in 14 games. Add it up and 62% of last season's minutes return: a real reshuffle around a core that stays.

What came in

The arrivals bring a lot of minutes. Naz Reid, from the Minnesota Timberwolves, played 77 games, scored 13.6 points with 6.2 rebounds in 26 minutes and graded above average (1.37). Grayson Allen, from the Phoenix Suns, scored 16.5 points in 28.8 minutes over 51 games with a 1.24. Those two are genuine plus players, and both should play big roles.

The other two are question marks. Royce O'Neale, also from Phoenix, played 78 games at 28.3 minutes but graded below average (-1.82), and Dennis Schroder, from the Sacramento Kings, scored 10.8 points with 4.9 assists at -0.5. Coby White, who scored 17.4 points with 4 assists in 50 games last season and a 1.21, gives Charlotte another guard who can score now that Ball is gone.

Miller, Knueppel and Diabate

The best number on the roster belongs to the player who scores the least of the three. Moussa Diabate averaged 7.9 points and 8.7 rebounds in 26 minutes over 73 games, and his 3.63 was the highest in this core, a shade above Ball's. His 8.7 rebounds were the most on the team, and Charlotte was far better with him on the floor than the box score suggests.

Miller and Knueppel are the scorers. Miller put up 20.2 points in 30.3 minutes over 65 games with a 2.6, and Knueppel added 18.5 points, 5.3 rebounds and 3.4 assists in 31.4 minutes over 81 games with a 2.48. Scorers who also grade well above average are what every team is looking for, and Charlotte has two of them. The catch: Knueppel is listed as questionable on the injury report.

Depth and the worries

Behind them, the bench graded better than you might expect. Grant Williams posted a 1.55 in 19.8 minutes over 36 games, and Ryan Kalkbrenner, with 7.6 points and 5.5 rebounds in 21.5 minutes, was above average too (0.55). But Williams is listed as questionable, and so is PJ Hall, so the depth starts the season a little thinner than it looks.

Sion James is the one returning regular who graded below average (-0.4), and only just, after playing all 82 games at 22.5 minutes. The bigger worry is the newcomers who did not grade well: O'Neale and Schroder took real minutes last season and gave some of them back. The three rookies, Christian Anderson, Hannes Steinbach and Michael Ajayi, start further down the list.

Bottom line

Our roster model ranks Charlotte 13th of 30 and projects about 44 wins, the same as last season, with a margin of 1.2 points per 100 possessions on paper, well down from last season's 4.9. That is the cost of losing Ball. If Diabate, Miller and Knueppel play like last season or better and Reid and Allen bring their numbers with them, the Hornets can beat it. If O'Neale and Schroder take big minutes at their old level, they will not.

The first look comes on Wednesday, October 21, at 7:30 PM ET, in Brooklyn against the Nets.