After finishing their 30th NBA season, the Charlotte Hornets should consider retiring Dell Curry’s jersey number.
The Charlotte Hornets were able to get Dell Curry to appear in 701 games during his time in Charlotte. His time in Charlotte was the most time that he spent with any team during his NBA career.
The Utah Jazz originally drafted him in the first round of the 1986 NBA Draft. He would then play one season with the Cleveland Cavaliers, before being selected by the Charlotte Hornets in the 1988 Expansion Draft.
After his long career with the Hornets, it’s time that the Hornets do something long overdue. It’s time for Charlotte to go ahead and finally retire the legendary number thirty.
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Curry deserves this because he was one of the most dominant shooters off the bench during the 1990s. After spending ten years in Charlotte, he only started in seventy-seven games for the Hornets.
During his ten-season stent, he averaged 14 points and 2.2 rebounds per game. During the 1996-97 season, Curry would earn his career high in points in a game with thirty-eight, in a win over the Toronto Raptors.
During his career, he would only win one NBA award, and that was with the Hornets during the 1993-94 season. During that season, he would win the NBA’s Sixth Man award, while averaging 16.3 points and 3.2 rebounds per game.
He currently still owns the Hornets’ all-time records in games played, and 2-PT Field Goals made. He had a variety of other records, but most of them were recently broken over the past two seasons by Kemba Walker.
With Curry currently holding the record in games played, I can think of no other former that is more deserving than him when it comes to getting a jersey retired. No other person in Hornets history has spent as much time on the team as he did.
You would think that the Hornets would’ve retired his number during this past season since it was the franchise’s 30th season. I was surprised that the thought of retiring his number never came up.
The Hornets have only retired one number, and that was the number 13. This number was worn by Bobby Phills, who passed away in 2000, due to a car accident. Buzz City still misses him to this day.
It will be interesting to see if the Hornets decide to make any special arrangements next season to honor former players who played for Charlotte. Who knows, maybe Curry will finally get his jersey number retired next season.