Charlotte Hornets: 2019-20 NBA season preview

The future is now for the Charlotte Hornets. What can we expect from a team that received a major facelift during the offseason?

The months following the 2018-19 season for the Charlotte Hornets went from bad to worse in a hurry. They came within games of making the playoffs at the end of the season and then had to deal with the back and forth of Kemba Walker‘s free agency status.

When the dust settled, the Hornets saw Walker ship up to Boston and have to pay Terry Rozier $56 million over the next three years. He wasn’t the only player to leave Charlotte as Jeremy Lamb decided not to stick around. And Frank Kaminsky was able to find another suitor as well.

The Hornets were a poster team for mediocrity last year that tried to catch lightning in a bottle. They finished most months with a .500 record, but a tough January derailed their plans to slide into the playoffs.

Coach James Borrego was able to increase the team’s scoring as a whole going from 108.2 points per game in 2017-18 to 110.7 last season. They weren’t as efficient in their 3-point shooting in 2018-19 (35.1 percent) as their 36.9 percent mark in 2017-18, but they made 153 more 3-pointers in 2018-19 than they had in 2017-18.

But Borrego will have to start all over again with a new face in Rozier and Miles Bridges at the forefront instead of Walker. Many expect that it will take a lot of work to get the Hornets back to a respectable status within the Eastern Conference.

So how will the scoring load be handled? Let’s discuss that and other big scenarios that the Hornets will encounter during the 2019-20 season.