Can the Charlotte Hornets defeat LeBron James one more time before he retires?

LeBron James has dominated just about every team he’s faced in his storied career. There is one team, however, that he just can’t but help feast on. That team, of course, is the Charlotte Hornets.

LeBron James is one of the greatest to ever lace them up. There is no debating that. For the better part of two decades, he’s imposed his will on just about every team in the league and even in his “twilight” years, he’s still a force to be reckoned with. Few teams know this better than the Charlotte Hornets.

It honestly shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. LeBron has always been on championship contenders and Charlotte has rarely fielded a playoff team while James has been in the league.

Yet, the sheer dominance of LeBron over Charlotte franchises is astounding. In his 51 career games vs Charlotte, he is 45-6 against them. That’s a winning percentage of 88%. Nearly 90% of the time LeBron James has faced Charlotte since joining the league, he’s won. That’s downright insulting.

His career stats against Charlotte are some of his best against any team as well. In those 51 games, he’s averaging 28 points, nearly 8 rebounds, and 7.6 assists per contest versus the Queen City. To make it worse, his average shooting percentage against the Hornets/Bobcats is 53.5%, which is his second-highest against any team, and only by a few fractions of a percentage point.

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Things were so bad in Charlotte, that for their best player ever, Kemba Walker, to finally best a LeBron James led team, he had to leave town for greener pastures with the Boston Celtics. If that’s not sobering, I don’t know what it is. At least it finally happened, even if it was on another team.

Oddly enough, the Hornets did defeat LeBron and the Cleveland Cavaliers back on February 3rd, 2016, meaning Kemba was on the team. Sadly, he did not play in that game due to soreness in his knee, so it technically doesn’t count.

To put that into even further perspective, before that win, the last time LeBron lost to a Charlotte team was nearly six years before that when he was in his first stint with the Cavs. It probably goes without saying, but Charlotte never defeated the Miami Heat when James was a member.

So, the Hornets are due, right? LeBron just turned 35 a few months ago and should be slowing down. Then again, he is always going to have at least one All-Star accompanying him, most likely for the rest of his career, so unless Charlotte improves dramatically over the next four or five years, those six wins over King James might be their final tally.

In the bigger picture, the Hornets’ lack of success against James isn’t a huge deal since it’s a mere handful of games a year. Still, it’s pretty embarrassing to have one player, no matter how great, mop the floor with you so consistently.

The next few years will be interesting for both LeBron and the Charlotte Hornets. As long he stays his usual self, he’ll continue to keep feasting on this team. As the Hornets try to improve their team, he might end up being the measuring stick for how that goes. Here’s hoping they can snag a few more wins before he decides to call it a career.