Charlotte Hornets: Success is product of finally having a GM who drafts well

How the Charlotte Hornets have gotten here

And of course, the Hornets finally found luck in the draft lottery and Kupchak made the right choice, drafting Ball in 2020, who has been the best player of that draft so far.

While you can argue that Ball was a given with a top-three pick, Charlotte fans will be the first to remind you of Adam Morrison, Raymond Felton, Emeka Okafor, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Cody Zeller, who were all drafted with top five picks and didn’t pan out.

When the Hornets/Bobcats had a later lottery pick, they ended up with guys like Sean May, DJ Augustin, Gerald Henderson, Noah Vonleh and Frank Kaminsky.

The draft history of this century is just miserable to think about.

The least talked about part of this is that Kupchak’s draft success shouldn’t even be surprising.

He was fired by the Lakers following some of the franchise’s worst years as Kobe Bryant was reaching the end of his career and never got to see his draft picks evolve.

But some of his final picks in Los Angeles included D’Angelo Russell, Julius Randle and Brandon Ingram, who have all gone on to become all-stars.

As the Hornets continue to progress and become playoff contenders, we might be quick to forget just how much this franchise went through to even begin drafting well.

Even with big signings like Gordon Hayward, Lance Stephenson, Al Jefferson and Nic Batum over the last decade, none of them have ever given Charlotte the amount of relevancy and promise they have right now.

The Hornets are finally drafting well, and while that might seem like a small accomplishment for most NBA teams, it’s everything for a franchise that has had such a poor track record this century.