There was a level of delusion in Charlotte when the season began, as the Hornets were expecting to be somewhat of a competitive team. Unfortunately, reality set in pretty quickly in Charlotte, with the Hornets dropping games at a rate of a team that is nowhere near a competitive level. While they are not playing as poorly as the worst team in the league right now (Detroit), they are also not at a level that will result in playing beyond the end of the regular season. Taking that into consideration, they should accept their fate and realize that they are going nowhere this season.
Would things be different for Charlotte if they had their full complement of players? Possibly. However, this team was not exactly playing winning basketball this year with LaMelo Ball in their lineup. The reality is that this is a bad team, but that fun type of bad. Capable of putting together highlight-worthy plays and scoring their fair share of points in a given contest, but more often than not, they come up short when the clock hits zero in the 4th quarter. Even though this can be entertaining to watch for the casual observer, it is not a winning product.
Part of the problem is that the Hornets entered the season with a roster that was pulling in two different directions. One was that of a team trying to compete with veterans such as Gordon Hayward and Terry Rozier, two players who have shown to be contributors to playoff teams. The other direction is that of a team that is a few years away from being a few years away. The contrasting directions of this roster eventually lead to it being torn in the middle, where there is no hope for postseason play, and they are not bad enough to land a top pick in the draft. More often than not, the end result of this configuration is long-term irrelevance with no way out in sight.
This is not to say the Hornets should trade anyone and everyone of value, but rather to identify who will and who will not be part of their next competitive cycle. When evaluating their competitive timeline and understanding it is at least a few years away, anyone around or over 30 years old should be first on the list of players that the team should look to move before the deadline. Next would be the players on expiring deals who could sign lucrative deals elsewhere after the season (Miles Bridges).
Even though this process would essentially be giving up on the season, a soft reset is absolutely necessary for the Hornets. This is a team that is going nowhere fast as currently constructed, spinning its wheels in the world of non-competitive basketball. Continuing down this path is completely foolish and a guaranteed loss of employment for anyone endrorsing this method.
There is a way for this organization to escape the basement of the Eastern Conference, but it is not going to come if they continue to spin their wheels with indecisiveness and delusional evaluations of their own talent level. The Hornets must churn through their roster and realize who is going to be essential parts of their competitive future instead of their current process, which has them on the fast track to nowhere. All it takes is one move to get the wheels in motion, and once that happens, the end of the non-competitive window they are stuck in will appear.