Now that the offseason is coming to an end, the Charlotte Hornets roster is set to start the season. A big question to wonder is how the depth chart could look in terms of rotating players on the court for head coach James Borrego and his coaching staff. The Hornets were very active this summer making moves during the draft and in free agency.
The front office made good moves by replacing players that left Charlotte, but now the roster sits on 16 players. Before the season starts the team will need to cut one more player to reach the allowed roster total of 15 players. When addressing the media, general manager Mitch Kupchak said that this group of players is the one that we will see next year, and no more “heavy lifting moves” are in the plans right now.
"Yes, we are done with the 'heavy lifting.'" -- #Hornets GM Mitch Kupchak on their offseason
— Rod Boone (@rodboone) August 10, 2021
Kupchak also stated that the NBA market is unpredictable and one never knows if an opportunity may knock on your door. If a good deal is offered to the Hornets they could very well decide to be involved. Take into consideration that before the start of the season there’s a chance that Ben Simmons might be moved from the Philadelphia 76ers. This could create a domino effect around the whole league that affects Charlotte’s roster.
In the below image you can see a depth chart I built to take a closer look at how the rotations could be at the start of the next season. As stated before, the Hornets still need to cut one of these players to reach 15. This likely won’t affect rotations too much as one of the backend young players will be the one to be cut. I also included the two players on two-way contracts, Scottie Lewis and Arnoldas Kulboka, they probably will not see many minutes as they need to work on refining their games with the G-League team.
Breaking down the table, we will probably see a big gap between the first nine players in the rotation and the rest of the group. This is because the Hornets have a big development group of players that are not ready to play a role in a full NBA season, those youngsters are going to be used if injuries take down some pieces of the main rotation.
The group of LaMelo Ball, Terry Rozier, Miles Bridges, PJ Washington, Kelly Oubre Jr., and Gordon Hayward will be the core and the heart of the team both in terms of experience and skills needed for the system. This young group provides Borrego great versatility on both sides of the court. The Hornets pushed on this trait during the offseason and decided to acquire versatile players to keep on with this strategy.
A big season is expected from Ball, his minutes will increase from last season and Charlotte expects him to be a key part of the rotation while leading the team for the majority of the time during games. His leadership will need to take a huge step if the Hornets want to compete for a playoff spot, it could be a lot to ask your sophomore superstar, but he seems to step up to the challenge in big moments.
The rest of the rotation is made by role players and the newest rookie James Bouknight. The two veterans acquired this summer – Ish Smith and Mason Plumlee – will need to add consistency to a young and inexperienced group of players. Smith will be the second unit’s playmaker and will have the responsibility of being the main creator when Ball is not on the court.
For Plumlee, you can see a starting situation, but Washington will likely take the majority of minutes at the center position. The former Detroit Piston is a good option for the weakest position in Charlotte’s recent history, but he likely isn’t the answer that this team is searching for.
Bouknight will be asked to contribute from day one if Charlotte wants to stay competitive. With the departure of Malik Monk and Devonte’ Graham, the guard position is thin and a lot of duties will be on Ball and Rozier’s shoulders. If Bouknight proves that he can contribute from the jump, we may see his minutes increasing from the 20 a night projection in this list.
The last rotation spot will be contended by Jalen McDaniels, Cody Martin, and Wes Iwundu as they are three of the best defenders currently on the roster. This decision will likely be team-specific on a nightly basis if none of these players take a step forward in their development.
For the rest of the players, keep your eyes on Kai Jones or Vernon Carey Jr. taking some minutes in the frontcourt if the other options do not provide the right production to the team. These two players are going to spend a lot of time in Greensboro for their development but it will not take much to call them back to the main team.
Borrego and the coaching staff have a big challenge in front of them, the front office has built an interesting and promising team that will need to find its consistency during the season. As head coach, Borrego will obviously play a key role in terms of finding the right rotations and balancing the competitive and developmental areas that the Hornets are trying to pursue at the same time.