Ranking the top three playoff teams in Charlotte Hornets history

Our last squad wasn’t the glitziest nor the most glamourous, but they played a tough brand of basketball that saw them come close to achieving something no Charlotte team has ever done.

Well, it’s about time to finish up and the next and final team on our list is a Hornets team straight from the turn of the century, back when boy bands and AOL chatrooms were all the rage. With names like Jamal Mashburn and David Wesley leading the way, this team wasn’t the most star-studded group in franchise history, but they knew how to get the job done on both ends of the court.

Winning 46 games, this team has the second-lowest amount of regular-season wins of any on this list, but this ranking is about playoff teams, not just teams who fared well in the regular season.

What makes this team so lauded in Hornets’ lore is that they came oh-so-close to getting to what would have been the club’s first-ever Eastern Conference Finals appearance. One could argue that maybe the level of overall NBA talent was skewed more towards the Western Conference at the time, but that’s not exactly Charlotte’s fault.

While they were merely the 6th seed, the Charlotte Hornets played at a higher level than anticipated.

So, that total of 46 wins was good enough to net the Hornets the 6th seed in the playoffs, matching them up against the 3rd seeded Miami Heat. This would be the first time these two teams would meet in the postseason, but it would not be the last, with the two clubs meeting three times in the playoffs thus far.

What made this matchup even more interesting is that both teams featured players who had essentially been traded for each other in the prior offseason.

Jamal Mashburn and P.J. Brown were traded to the Hornets for Eddie Jones, and Ricky Davis, and Anthony Mason before the start of the year in a move spearheaded by Miami Head Coach, Pat Riley.

Another former Hornet, Alonzo Mourning, was the team leader, but due to a kidney disorder, he was forced to miss the end of the year and the playoffs. That disorder would keep the All-Star out of the sport for a handful of years.

The Heat certainly missed his presence, as the Charlotte Hornets manhandled the Heat, sweeping the series in three, by an average over 22 points a game. Mashburn set the pace, scoring almost 24 points a game, and Baron Davis emerged, as the second-year player averaged over 20.

In the second-round, Charlotte would face off against Ray Allen and the Milwaukee Bucks. The Bucks were the 2nd seed in the East and had polished off the Orlando Magic in four games. Both teams were well-rested and they would need that rest as the series would go all the way to seven.

Milwaukee would win the first two games, but the second one was very close, with the Bucks winning by just a single point. Charlotte then would go onto win the next three by over 8 points a contest. Jamal Mashburn averaged over 30 points in those three victories.

Sadly, the Bucks would tie it up in Charlotte and then take the series in Milwaukee, 104-95. It was a fairly close series with the average margin of victory being over 7 points. Mashburn, of course, was your scoring leader, averaging over 25 points a game and P.J. Brown did some nice work on the glass, snagging over 10 boards per contest.

It would have been interesting to see the Hornets in the conference finals as the eventual Eastern Conference Champs, the Philadelphia 76ers were only able to split the season series against the Hornets.

Of course, even if they had won that series, they’d have faced off against the Los Angeles Lakers and that could have been ugly. It could have been fun, though.

I suppose we’ll wrap this one up and I’ll give a few final thoughts.