Breaking down the Hornets' remaining schedule

As the all-star break wraps up, the Hornets look to hit the second half of the season and take on the stretch run of remaining games. The team has played 54 of the 82-game schedule, leaving 28 games to play.

Home vs. Away

Over the final 28 games, the Hornets will play just 12 times at home in the comforts of Spectrum Center, as opposed to 16 games on the road. Those 16 away games include a 4-game stretch to open the second half, starting in Utah, and 13 of their next 17 games overall.

After that brutal stretch, the Hornets will finally return home on March 27th for an 8-game homestand that ends on April 9th. Then they’ll head back out on the road for a three-game road trip to complete the regular season on April 14th in Cleveland

Strength of schedule

The Hornets also have the 5th hardest remaining strength of schedule, as their opponents have a combined winning percentage of .519. That includes 7 games against the top 3 teams in the East, the Celtics, Cavaliers, and Bucks, and only one game apiece against the lowly Wizards and Pistons.

To make matters worse, the Hornets also have six remaining instances where they play on back-to-back nights. Only one of those occurrences involves back-to-back home games. So it will be a lot of travel and a lot of games packed into a fairly small amount of time.

The Hornets will have to earn their wins over the final months of the season, that’s for sure. But at this point, it’s more about the process than the results. As long as the team is playing hard, creating a culture, and building positive habits, that’s more of a win than anything that happens on the scoreboard.

Impact on draft position

The tough schedule should hopefully allow the Hornets to compete hard against good competition while also not moving up too much in the standings as to hinder potential draft positioning. 

Charlotte currently has the fourth worst record in the NBA, and the fourth best odds to land the #1 overall pick in the draft, a 12.5% chance. They trail (or lead, depending on how you look at it) the Blazers by 2 games for the 5th worst record, and lead the Spurs, who have the third-worst record by 2.5 games.