5 Players the Charlotte Hornets Gave up on too soon

4. Jared Dudley

Jared Dudley was drafted 22nd overall by (the then) Charlotte Bobcats in the 2007 NBA draft. Dudley turned out to be a productive, 3&D role player stringing together a successful 14-year NBA career. However, his time in Charlotte only lasted a year and a half.

Dudley found his way into the Bobcats’ rotation almost immediately, and didn’t take long to become a key contributor. He made his first start in November of the 2007 season and didn’t look back from there, frequently trading off between playing the three and the four.

While Dudley didn’t light up any stat sheets (he only averaged 5.6 ppg in his one and half seasons) he certainly showed flashes of the scrappy role player he was capable of being.

Dudley was traded at the 2008 trade deadline to the Phoenix Suns in a trade involving Raja Bell, Boris Diaw, and Sean Singletary. The Boston College product became a key piece on a Suns team that even made a run to the Western Conference Finals in the 2010 season.

Most importantly, every single season as a member of the Suns, Dudley hovered around the 40 percent mark from three (and some seasons even higher) which made him a viable asset that was hard to keep off the floor.

That high level play carried with him for the rest of his career and he was a sought after “3 & D” wing until his retirement in August of 2021.

For a Bobcats organization that  struggled with woefully inadequate shooting during their time under that moniker, they would have absolutely benefitted from a shooter of Dudley’s caliber.