Charlotte Hornets: The Pick That Never Was
Hornets faithful often wonder what it would have been like to have a star like Kobe on the team. He could have made the Hornets into a venerable powerhouse.
Let’s say the Hornets managed to keep Kobe for a while and he played at the same level. What would it have been like? Well, he most likely would have come off the bench, backing up an aging Dell Curry. Kobe only averaged 7.6 points and 15.5 minutes per game in his rookie year, but that was on a Lakers roster that featured Shaquille O’Neal, Eddie Jones, Nick Van Exel, Cedric Ceballos, and Robert Horry. The Hornets, on the other hand, weren’t quite that loaded. Kobe definitely would have played more minutes for the Hornets.
Without Vlade Divac, however, Matt Geiger would have played the most minutes at center. He averaged just over 21 minutes per game backing up Divac, scoring just under 9 points per contest. He’d have surely improved given more playing time.
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Charlotte finished with a 54-28 record that year, good for 6th in the conference. Much of the Hornet’s offense was driven by Glen Rice, who scored nearly 27 points a game that season. Having a young Kobe would have helped take some of the load off. They went 51-31 the next season. They failed to make it past the second round in both of those seasons, however, so Kobe could have helped change that.
Of course, the biggest change would be that if Charlotte had Kobe, then there likely would have been enough fan interest for them to stay in Charlotte. With Michael Jordan on his way out, Kobe really could have been the “Air Apparent.”
That would also obviously mean the Charlotte Bobcats would not exist. I’m sure a lot of Queen City natives would consider that a positive.