Where do the Charlotte Hornets land after LeBron James went to the Philadelphia 76ers?
NBA legend LeBron James signed a two-year, $8 million deal with the Philadelphia 76ers.
The Sixers now have a lethal core of LeBron, Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, Jaylen Brown and VJ Edgecombe.
NBA analyst Andy Bailey of Bleacher Report ranked every team in the league after James joined the 76ers, and he has the Charlotte Hornets at 13.
Charlotte traded LaMelo Ball and Josh Green to the Minnesota Timberwolves for Naz Reid and sent Miles Bridges to the Phoenix Suns for Grayson Allen and Royce O'Neale, and then in the 2026 draft, the Hornets took Hannes Steinbach from Washington with the 14th overall pick and Texas Tech's Christian Anderson Jr. with the 18th overall pick.
The Hornets also re-signed Coby White and acquired Dorian-Finney Smith from the Houston Rockets.
Charlotte is expected to start White, Brandon Miller, Kon Knueppel, Reid and Moussa Diabaté next season. That's a strong starting five on paper.
The Hornets missed the playoffs last season by one game. They haven't made the playoffs since 2016, but the future of the franchise looks bright with White, Miller, Knueppel, Reid and Diabaté leading the way.
Knueppel and Miller are the new franchise players in Charlotte with Ball gone.
Even though Knueppel didn't win the 2025-26 Rookie of the Year Award, he still had a special season for the Hornets. The swingman averaged 18.5 points, 5.3 rebounds and 3.4 assists per game and shot 47.5% from the field, 42.5% from 3 and 86.3% from the free-throw line. He led the NBA in 3s.
Miller appeared in 65 games for the Hornets last season. He averaged 20.2 points, 4.9 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game while shooting 43.5% from the field, 38.3% from beyond the arc and 89.2% from the free-throw line.
The Hornets never made the playoffs in the Ball era. Ball played in 303 games with Charlotte. He averaged 20.8 points and 7.3 assists per game and made one All-Star team (2022).
Next season will be the first time in his NBA career that Reid will be a starter. It will be fascinating to see how the 26-year-old performs in head coach Charles Lee's system.
"After closing the 2025-26 campaign as perhaps the NBA's hottest team, the Charlotte Hornets unloaded two of their top four scorers in LaMelo Ball and Miles Bridges and didn't replace them with any real starpower in the short term," Bailey wrote. "But they did add draft capital in those moves and re-signed Coby White. And Grayson Allen, Dorian Finney-Smith, Royce O'Neale and Naz Reid all have plenty of experience supporting star wings. That's exactly what Charlotte is betting Brandon Miller and Kon Knueppel will become. And last season gave the Hornets plenty of evidence for it."
