Central Notes: Giannis, Pacers Workout, Pacers Extensions, Buzelis
Assuming the Bucks trade Giannis Antetokounmpo before the draft, they apparently are looking to rebuild quickly through this draft class.
The Bucks will assuredly receive the Heat’s No. 13 pick along with other draft capital if they deal their franchise player to Miami, Jake Fischer of The Stein Line tweets. Fischer also hears that Milwaukee is calling other teams in search of a third top-20 pick in this draft, potentially another pick in the top 10.
Milwaukee already holds the No. 10 selection in the draft, which is 10 days away.
Here’s more from the Central Division:
- The Pacers will hold another pre-draft workout on Monday, featuring Donovan Atwell (Texas Tech), Anthony Dell’Orso (Arizona), Trey Kaufman-Renn (Purdue), Xaivian Lee (Florida), Rienk Mast (Nebraska), and Braden Smith (Purdue), according to a team press release. It’s their fifth pre-draft workout this year. This group is mainly comprised of second-round prospects, headlined by former Boilermakers point guard Smith (ranked No. 38 on ESPN’s Best Available list).
- The Pacers have eight extension-eligible players on the roster, including Tyrese Haliburton, Pascal Siakam and Ivica Zubac. The Indianapolis Star’s Dustin Dopirak notes the eligibility date, current contract and highest possible extension for each of those players and gives his insights on how the front office might approach each of those decisions.
- In an interview with K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Sports Network (video link), Bulls forward Matas Buzelis describes the impact that broadcaster and former Bull Stacey King had on the team’s younger players. King, 59, passed away last weekend.
And-Ones: Lewis, Edwards, Option Decisions, Championship Rosters, BIG3
Lithuanian club Zalgiris Kaunas is close to an agreement with former NBA wing Maxwell Lewis, who finished the 2025/26 season with Juventus Utena, BasketNews reports.
Lewis is expected to sign a multiyear contract but he would be loaned in the first year to another team, most likely the London Lions. The 23-year-old Lewis averaged 13.6 points, 5.0 rebounds, and 2.0 assists last season with Juventus in 22 games. He also played 22 games with Turkey’s Tofas before parting ways with that club in March.
Lewis was selected 40th overall in the 2023 draft and spent two seasons in the NBA. Drafted out of Pepperdine, Lewis began his professional career with the Lakers, but logged just 103 total minutes in 34 appearances at the NBA level as a rookie, playing primarily in garbage time. The 6’7″ forward played in seven more games for Los Angeles during the 2024/25 season before being dealt to the Nets. Lewis was limited to 21 appearances for Brooklyn after fracturing his tibia in his first game as a Net. He averaged 5.3 points and 2.5 rebounds in 14.2 minutes per game.
Zalgiris is also finalizing an agreement with former NBA guard Carsen Edwards, according to BasketNews. Edwards spent the 2025/26 season with Virtus Bologna, averaging 17.3 points, 2.2 rebounds, 2.3 assists in 25 minutes per game in the EuroLeague. Edwards logged 72 games in the NBA, mainly with Boston.
Here’s more from around the international basketball world:
- Trae Young, Zach LaVine, Andrew Wiggins, Isaiah Hartenstein and Fred VanVleet are some of the big-name players who have options on their contracts for next season. What will happen with their contractual situations? The Athletic’s John Hollinger makes his prediction for each of these decisions, as well as several other players with partial guarantees or options.
- The look of a championship team has evolved, Hollinger opines in a separate piece. He notes that the model of having a dominant regular season built around a superstar is no longer the blueprint. While superstars always matter, teams that have a strong overall lineup are increasingly emerging as true contenders. That’s due to defenses switching nearly everything and offenses hunting matchup advantages. Having the least-bad weakest link can and does matter as much as, or even more than, having the best superstar, Hollinger adds.
- Want to own a piece of BIG3? You may soon get your wish. The league, co-founded by rapper Ice Cube, is eyeing a $290MM valuation as it plans to go public later this year, according to ESPN. The league announced Friday that it will offer fans a chance to buy stock in the league. They are targeting an offering on one of the major stock exchanges in the fourth quarter of 2026 under the ticker TONT (short for 3-on-3). The BIG3 is starting its ninth season next week in Los Angeles.
Knicks Notes: Game 5, Brunson, McBride, Alvarado, MVP, More
The Knicks are on the verge of erasing over a half-century of frustration. They can win their first NBA championship since 1973 with a victory in Game 5 on the Spurs’ home floor on Saturday night.
Jalen Brunson is embracing the possibility, according to Howie Kussoy of the New York Post.
“I think the one thing that stays constant is I’ve always told myself, and always been taught by my parents, ‘Never be afraid to fail,’” Brunson said Friday at Frost Bank Center. “You put yourself in those positions in the summertime when you’re envisioning what’s going on the court, when you’re by yourself on the court … When those opportunities come about, you’re not afraid of the moment because you worked hard enough to where if you do fail, you’re going to learn anyway. You put the confidence you have in everything you do when the lights aren’t on, when no one’s watching.”
Brunson is averaging 29.5 points per game for the series despite shooting just 39.6% from the field. He had 36 points and seven assists during Game 4, making several crucial baskets during the team’s historic comeback.
“Whenever you win or lose a game, that night, you’re going to think about it, think about the things you’ve done well or what you did wrong, [but] I’ve always told myself when you wake up the next day, it’s time to turn the page,” Brunson said. “Yes, we won [Game 4], but we still have a lot of work to do. We have a lot to learn. We didn’t play our best basketball. We still have a lot to revisit to make sure that we don’t really put ourselves in that position again.”
Here’s more on the Knicks:
- Backup guard Miles McBride has been a non-factor in the series, averaging 2.8 points in 13.3 minutes per game while shooting 20% from the field. McBride says he hasn’t lost confidence, Kussoy writes. “I’m always going to stay confident, knowing I can impact the game in a lot of different ways,” McBride said. “I’m going to make shots. I’m never worried about that. … Anybody is capable of it, 1 through 15 on this team. We’re pushing each other to be better. That’s how our team has been. We’re motivators. We want to uplift everybody. I think having a team like that, you can do a lot of great things.”
- Coach Mike Brown took a gamble in Game 4 and it paid off. He paired small guards Brunson and Jose Alvarado together and in the 12 minutes they shared the court, the Knicks outscored the Spurs by 21 points. “I think he did a great job of coming in and changing the game,” Brunson said of Alvarado, per Zach Braziller of the New York Post. Alvarado scored eight big points in the win, all coming in the second half, and added three assists and two rebounds. Alvarado has a $4.5MM option on his contract for next season.
- The Knicks are relying on their maturity to reach the finish line, according to Jared Schwartz of the New York Post. “Obviously, we have some veteran guys on the team. But you can be a veteran and still have a little bit of immaturity about you, as we all know,” Brown said. “From top to bottom, this group is pretty mature. That rubs off on the rest of the group. It makes my job easier. We’ve been preaching all year that it’s about the next possession, the next possession, the next possession. We understand any time you try to play a closeout game, the level of desperation for your opponents increases, the level of desperation for the fans of your opponents is increased. You have to bring your best effort.”
- Who is the Finals MVP at the moment, Brunson, OG Anunoby or Karl-Anthony Towns? A team of writers from The Athletic tackles that question, giving the edge to Game 4 star Anunoby, given his overall impact and efficiency in the series.
- Speaking of Towns, he’s on the verge of becoming a franchise and New York legend, The Athletic’s Ian O’Connor writes. Towns has shed the label of being a soft player with his playoff performances, offensive aggression and defensive toughness. “I’ve always had to change the way I play so it could be most beneficial for the team,” he said. “Taking all that experience this year, I’ve had to do it on the fly. It wasn’t game by game. It’s been quarter by quarter. That comes with experience, and just knowledge of the game, and just time. Time playing the game, time putting shots up, time reading defenses, seeing defenses, offenses. … I think that right now, whatever it takes to win, especially when you’re in the NBA Finals, I’m willing to do.”
Southeast Notes: Hornets, Heat, Draft Workouts, Hawks
The Hornets are coming off their most encouraging season in years, and while they have a locked-in core three of LaMelo Ball, Kon Knueppel, and Brandon Miller, they still have decisions to make on how best to complement the high-powered offensive trio.
Despite not being as firmly a part of the starting lineup of the future, Coby White and Moussa Diabate should be considered “not going anywhere” candidates this offseason, Roderick Boone writes for the Charlotte Observer.
Diabate is entering the last year of a very team-friendly deal after stabilizing the Hornets’ center position and providing the club with a strong source of offensive rebounding in 2025/26. White is expected to stay with the Hornets after the team traded for him at this season’s deadline — he’ll be an unrestricted free agent, but Charlotte controls his full Bird rights.
Miles Bridges is the top name on the watch list category for players who could be on the move, Boone writes, as are Pat Connaughton, Josh Green, Tre Mann, and Grant Williams.
We have more from around the Southeast Division:
- The Hornets hosted four players for pre-draft workouts on Wednesday: Christian Anderson (Texas Tech), Anthony Dell’Orso (Arizona), Mark Mitchell (Missouri), and Latrell Wrightsell Jr. (Alabama), per Boone (Twitter link). Anderson, a smooth shooter and pick-and-roll operator, is the highest-ranked player of that group, coming in at No. 18 on Jeremy Woo’s big board for ESPN. Given that the Hornets control the 14th and 18th overall picks, Anderson could be under consideration with one of their first-rounders.
- Barring a trade, including a Giannis Antetokounmpo deal, the Heat will have the 13th pick in the 2026 NBA draft, along with No. 41. They have begun hosting pre-draft workouts, with Ezra Ausar (USC) coming in on Friday, per SNY’s Ian Begley (Twitter link). They will also bring in Bryce Hopkins (St. John’s) next week, according to Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald. Hopkins, a fifth-year senior, is only a career 32.4% shooter from three, but he has raised that average to 36.6% over the last two seasons.
- The Hawks have two main paths they have to choose between as they look to keep building on last year’s encouraging season. They could free up to $32MM in cap space and be a free agency player, or they could stay over the cap while prioritizing re-signing their own players and working the trade market, Spotrac’s Keith Smith writes in his offseason preview. Either way, one offseason goal should be to add more size, even if they keep reserve big man Jock Landale. Since the Hawks own two first-round picks, it would make sense to target a big man with one of them, Smith writes.
Draft Notes: Top Prospects, Wilson, Lendeborg, Trades
The 2026 NBA draft class has been lauded as a particularly strong one at the top of the lottery. AJ Dybantsa (BYU), Cameron Boozer (Duke), and Darryn Peterson (Kansas) make up a formidable trio, and Caleb Wilson (UNC) is by no means a consolation prize.
Even though they’re all great prospects in their own right, they’re not quite at the top of the list of the best draftees to come into the league over the last decade, according to Sam Vecenie of The Athletic.
In Vecenie’s rankings of top prospects since 2015, Dybantsa, Boozer, and Peterson come in at sixth, seventh, and eighth, respectively, while Wilson is 18th, one spot below the Spurs’ Dylan Harper. Even though the UNC forward falls out of the top 15, Vecenie writes that he considers Wilson’s value to be equivalent to the second overall pick in a normal draft lottery.
At the top of his rankings, based on how they were evaluated before they got to the league, Vecenie has a top five of Victor Wembaynama, Cooper Flagg, Zion Williamson, Cade Cunningham, and Karl-Anthony Towns, in that order.
We have more draft news and notes:
- When it comes to Wilson’s projections at the next level, his trainer, Robert Swain, believes that the sky is the limit, given his versatile skill set and high character. “He’s going to explode,” Swain said in an interview with Mark Medina of R.org. “He’s going to be a great teammate. He’s going to be able to provide whatever the coach wants him to do. He’ll be able to do it at a high level.” Swain says Wilson has been working on his face-up game since the college season ended. While the athletic forward showed some self-creation skills in the mid-range in college, smoothing out the jump shot will go a long way in helping him reach his ceiling. As far as player comparisons, Swain’s are ambitious. “With Magic Johnson, I can see Caleb getting a rebound and taking it coast-to-coast, whether he’s scoring for himself, creating for a teammate to score or creating for a teammate to create for another teammate,” he said. “So I see him making those quick decisions with the basketball in his hands. With Paul George, you can see him spacing up and taking the elbow jumper and getting into his one-two dribble pull-up. As far as (Kevin) Garnett, you can see Caleb scoring 18 feet in, grabbing defensive and offensive rebounds and blocking shots.”
- Yaxel Lendeborg (Michigan) is hoping to become the NBA’s next versatile, do-it-all forward, and there are four players he is using to help shape how he works on his game, according to Duane Rankin of the Arizona Republic. “One is [Paolo Banchero], I always tried to mimic his game,” Lendeborg said, following a workout with the Warriors. “(Timberwolves big man) Naz Reid as well. In a way, I try to mimic some of [LeBron James’] drives and how physical he is and how he uses his body, when to use it, stuff like that. And somebody I still watch to this day is, just highlights, is Magic Johnson. I learned a lot of different things. Little pieces from each player.“
- Rumors have circulated about teams looking to trade up or down in the draft, and while the high pedigree of the top players makes it unlikely that we will see major movement at the top, it’s not out of the realm of possibility. That’s why ESPN’s NBA insiders put together six potential major draft-day trades that could shake up the landscape. The first would be an unprecedented move: the Wizards trading pick No. 1, Bub Carrington, and Cam Whitmore to the Jazz for No. 2, Ace Bailey, and a 2029 pick. The top two picks have never been swapped before, according to ESPN. Could this be the year it happens?
Spurs Notes: Wembanyama, Kornet, Johnson, Fox, Discipline
The Spurs lost Game 4 of the 2026 Finals in heartbreaking fashion to go down 3-1, but they headed home to San Antonio for Game 5 with the belief that they can defy the odds and make a comeback.
“Everybody (on the Spurs) thinks – everybody knows – we’re going to do it,” Victor Wembanyama said, per Joe Vardon of The Athletic. “I feel like we need to isolate that one game and take it one game at a time. I think it would be a mistake to waste our energy on multiple games. It’s one game at a time.”
Wembanyama acknowledged that the heavy minutes load and Finals intensity have, at times, made it difficult to play his best basketball, but he made no excuses, saying that everyone is dealing with the same challenges. Besides, the two days off between Games 4 and 5 should ensure everyone is fully recovered from a draining Game 4.
“We still have this belief because we’ve seen it,” said De’Aaron Fox. “We’ve seen it be done, that teams have come back from 3-1. I think even with those series, the games that they lost, they were losing by double digits. The games that we’re losing have all been close games. We still have that belief that we have a chance to win.”
We have more from the Spurs:
- Luke Kornet has been listed as questionable for Saturday’s game due to an illness, ESPN’s Tim MacMahon notes (via Twitter). Due to Wembanyama’s increased workload, Kornet is averaging just 7.8 minutes per game this series despite being the Spurs’ primary backup center. He played just four minutes in Game 4.
- While Fox has taken a lot of scrutiny for his game management at the end of Wednesday’s loss, head coach Mitch Johnson has remained steadfast in his belief in the All-Star point guard, Michael C. Wright writes for ESPN. “People have their opinions,” Johnson said. “I don’t care. I care what the people that matter in our building, our organization, in that locker room, that they know how I feel. De’Aaron Fox will have the basketball in his hands at the end of the game tomorrow, and I have the utmost confidence he’s going to deliver like he’s done countless times for us.” Fox didn’t downplay his miscues, but he indicated he’s not letting outside criticism bother him. “I don’t watch those shows. It doesn’t matter,” he said. “It is what it is. Can’t change it now. It is what it is. We’re trying to move on from that, continue to learn from the mistakes we made, how we lost the lead, finished the game poorly. We think about the next game.“
- While putting the loss behind them is necessary, it’s also important for the Spurs to learn from their breakdowns in discipline, as keeping their composure will likely be the deciding factor in whether or not they win Game 5, ESPN’s Ben Golliver writes in a Game 5 prediction roundup. The good news for the Spurs is that most of the reasons they lost Game 4 were fixable errors. Now they just have to show they can hold onto a lead.
- If there’s one word the Spurs can always hang their hats on, it’s “belief,” Jeff McDonald writes for the San Antonio Express-News. It’s a word the head coach repeated to every player in the Spurs locker room after the heartbreak of Game 4. “You don’t get here without belief, without faith in each other, and that’s not going to change now,” Johnson said. “If it was easy, everybody would do it.” This young team has shown itself to be a resilient bunch, but to come back from a 3-1 Finals deficit, it will take all the belief it can muster. “Backs against the wall,” rookie guard Dylan Harper said. “If we believe we are who we think we are, then it’s going to show.”
Stein’s Latest: Irving, Mavs Vets, Brown, Murphy
The Mavericks have been receiving trade calls for Kyrie Irving but have reportedly stood firm in their stance that the star point guard is not available, Marc Stein writes in the latest story for The Stein Line (subscriber link).
New Mavs president Masai Ujiri has stated from the beginning of his tenure with the team that he hopes to see Irving and franchise cornerstone Cooper Flagg play together, despite the sizable age gap between them.
The Pistons and Timberwolves are two teams known to have interest in the 34-year-old’s services, while the Rockets have not inquired after him despite some speculation that they’d be a suitor, Stein reports.
Irving is coming off a missed season due to an ACL tear and is still under contract in Dallas for two more seasons. It appears that Ujiri wants to get a sense of how he can help Flagg’s development before determining whether to deal him.
We have more from Stein’s newsletter:
- While the Mavericks are signaling their lack of interest in dealing Irving, some of their other veterans may be more available. Stein writes that Klay Thompson, P.J. Washington, and Daniel Gafford are all players the team is seen as more open to the possibility of moving, with Thompson standing out as a clear candidate to be moved, given his expiring contract.
- After previous reports from the Stein Line indicated which teams were most active in pursuing Giannis Antetokounmpo, Stein adds that there is interest around the league in whether a robust market could form for a third team to take on Jaylen Brown in a deal that would send the Bucks star to the Celtics. The Trail Blazers, Rockets, and Hawks have all been rumored to have interest in Brown, but his contract makes it somewhat difficult to find good fits from a salary-matching perspective.
- Pelicans wing Trey Murphy III remains one of the most sought-after names on the trade market, with Stein describing the interest for him around the league as “intense.” The Pistons and Pacers are two teams that have reportedly registered their interest. As of yet, the trade discussions have all been initiated by other teams rather than the Pelicans offering him in deals. However, Stein notes that this is the first time that the Joe Dumars-led front office has been willing to entertain offers.
Bucks To Hire Vince Legarza, Brad Jones To Coaching Staff
The Bucks are hiring assistant coaches Vince Legarza and Brad Jones to help round out their coaching staff, reports Michael Scotto of HoopsHype (Twitter link).
Legarza is a 36-year-old who got his start as a player development coach in Atlanta, where he worked alongside new Bucks coach Taylor Jenkins. Legarza then joined the Jazz as an advanced scout and assistant coach and stayed in Utah for four years. He spent the 2022/23 season as a Bucks assistant before working for the Suns from 2024-26.
Jones also spent three years with the Jazz, though he didn’t overlap with Legarza during his stint in Utah (2013-16). He went on to spend the 2018/19 season coaching the Memphis Hustle and then was as a Grizzlies assistant coach from 2019-23, working under Jenkins at the time.
The Bucks are building a staff featuring several coaches with whom Jenkins is familiar, having previously hired Patrick St. Andrews along with Joe Boylan.
Northwest Notes: Wolves, Edwards, Joe, Nuggets
Within their report on the latest Giannis Antetokounmpo rumors, which we recapped earlier today, Sam Amick and Eric Nehm of The Athletic say that Timberwolves president of basketball operations Tim Connelly has shown “some level of interest” in Mavericks guard Kyrie Irving and Grizzlies guard Ja Morant.
Based on the wording of the report, it’s unclear whether Irving and Morant were options Connelly and the Wolves considered in the past and are no longer interested in, or if they’re potential targets the club may pursue this summer.
[RELATED: Anthony Edwards Wants Timberwolves To Upgrade Roster]
When we previewed Minnesota’s offseason earlier this week, I mentioned both Irving and Morant as possible trade options for the Wolves, noting that neither player is at the peak of his value at this point. Irving is coming off an ACL tear and will have been sidelined for over 18 months by the time the 2026/27 season tips off, while Morant has been limited to 79 total games over the past three seasons due to various injuries and has lost some of the explosiveness that defined his game earlier in his career.
We have more from around the Northwest:
- Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic takes an in-depth look at the knee injury Anthony Edwards suffered in the first round of the playoffs and the way the Timberwolves guard managed to return to action earlier than anyone expected. As Krawcynski writes, the experience taught Edwards that if he’s willing to devote the time and effort to it, he can get more out of his body than he knew. “This is the worst injury I’ve seen him deal with in his career and I’ve been knowing him for almost 10 years,” his best friend Nick Maddox told Krawczynski. “To see him bounce back and have that motivation, it speaks volumes to his faith, what he believes in, and he cares about the fans. It’s like, ‘Man, if I can go out there, I’m going out there.’ I really appreciate him for that.”
- Thunder wing Isaiah Joe had the best season of his six-year NBA career in 2025/26, setting new career highs in points per game (11.1) and three-point percentage (42.3%), among other categories. However, as Joe Mussatto of The Oklahoman writes in his report card evaluating Joe’s season, the 26-year-old’s improvements on both ends of the floor weren’t enough to earn him regular, consistent minutes in the playoffs. Joe, who is viewed as a possible trade candidate, has said he wants to focus on speeding up his shooting motion and extending his range this offseason, Mussatto notes.
- In his preview of the Nuggets‘ offseason, Keith Smith of Spotrac suggests that Peyton Watson‘s next deal could be in the range of $27MM per year and expresses skepticism that Denver will seriously explore trading Jamal Murray or Aaron Gordon. We published our own preview of the Nuggets’ summer on Thursday.
2026 NBA Offseason Preview: Charlotte Hornets
The Hornets finished the 2024/25 campaign with the third-worst record in the NBA (19-63) and missed the playoffs for the ninth consecutive year, which is the longest active drought in the league. Charlotte moved down one spot in the 2025 draft lottery, landing the fourth overall pick.
While Kon Knueppel was viewed as a contender to be selected at that spot, it wasn't considered a lock, with Ace Bailey and Tre Johnson among the other candidates. But the Hornets were absolutely right in believing in the 20-year-old wing, who exceeded all expectations in his debut season, nearly outdueling his former teammate and close friend Cooper Flagg for Rookie of the Year after averaging 18.5 points, 5.4 rebounds and 3.4 assists in 81 regular season games (31.5 minutes per contest). Knueppel posted an excellent .475/.425/.863 shooting line, became the first rookie in history to lead the league in three-pointers made (273), and helped Charlotte improve from 19 to 44 wins.
The addition of Knueppel was in retrospect the most noteworthy of the Hornets' 2025 offseason moves, but it certainly wasn't the only transaction. The team also added three other draft picks: one late first-rounder (Liam McNeeley, who went 29th overall), which was acquired in the Mark Williams trade with Phoenix, and two early second-rounders (Sion James and Ryan Kalkbrenner, Nos. 33 and 34, respectively), both of whom played rotation minutes as rookies.
Trading veteran center Jusuf Nurkic to Utah for Collin Sexton and a second-round pick was another one of head of basketball operations Jeff Peterson's moves last summer, though the 27-year-old guard's stay in Charlotte was brief. Sexton was traded to Chicago in February -- in one of the team's five deadline moves -- for Coby White, another impending free agent guard.
The start of 2025/26 looked like more of the same in Charlotte, as the team was just 11-23 following a one-point loss at Milwaukee on January 2. But the Hornets played like an entirely different team the rest of the season, blowing out the top-seeded Thunder in Oklahoma City a few days into the new year and beating several playoff teams later that month en route to a nine-game winning streak. The Hornets closed '25/26 with a 33-15 mark to finish 44-38, the No. 9 seed in the East.
While the team survived a wild overtime game vs. Miami to eliminate the Heat in the 9/10 matchup, the Hornets were embarrassed in Orlando with a chance to advance as the eighth seed, losing by 31 points and ending their surprising season on a sour note. The aforementioned nine-year playoff drought is now up to 10.
Creating a health plan for LaMelo Ball, who made 72 regular season appearances after averaging just 35 games per year in the three seasons leading up to 2025/26, was a key part of Charlotte's success. The 24-year-old point guard is a polarizing player for both on- and off-court reasons, but there's no question the Hornets have been a better team -- especially on offense -- when he's in the lineup.
Improved health from former No. 2 overall pick Brandon Miller was another key factor in Charlotte's 25-win improvement. After being limited to just 27 games in his second season due to wrist surgery, he made 65 appearances (30.3 minutes per game) in 2025/26, averaging 20.2 PPG, 4.9 RPG, 3.3 APG and 1.0 SPG on .435/.383/.892 shooting splits. The 6'7" wing notably improved his efficiency while playing more solid defense than he had in his first two seasons, despite dealing with a partially dislocated left shoulder he played through for several months.
Another key piece to the puzzle for the Hornets in 2025/26 was Moussa Diabate, an undersized French center with a relentless motor. The team had the equivalent of the top-ranked offense and the fourth-ranked defense when the 24-year-old big man was on the court this past season, which is pretty remarkable considering the Hustle Award winner had played a fairly modest role prior to 2025/26.
Peterson and the rest of Charlotte's front office have done a nice job utilizing the team's financial flexibility to add draft assets over the past two years. Now the Hornets need to decide whether their second-half run will lead to sustainable long-term success or whether the team needs outside help to go from a pretty good team -- they had the eighth-best net rating in the NBA -- to a club that's capable of making real noise in the playoffs.
The Hornets' Offseason Plans
The Hornets are one of six NBA teams with two first-round picks in the 2026 NBA draft. The team controls the final lottery pick (No. 14 overall) and has another selection a few spots later (No. 18). Their primary free agent is White, who has a $25MM cap hold, and they have one main extension candidate in Miller.
On the surface, Charlotte's offseason seems like it could be pretty straightforward: re-sign White, draft a couple of young players to add to their core, extend Miller if the deal is reasonable, and continue to build on the strong results of the latter portion of 2025/26. However, the Hornets also have financial flexibility, a significant cache of draft assets, and the right types of contracts (three mid-sized expiring deals) to be much more aggressive than that if they want to be.
