NBA: Ranking every team’s best player in 2019-20

Deciding on the best player on the Charlotte Hornets‘ roster is a painful exercise, something akin to diving headfirst into the shallow end of the pool. This is a team with a couple of young players with upside, otherwise the club is locked into bench-level players paid as starters. They were the only team not to have a player rank in Sports Illustrated’s recent Top 100 NBA Players list.

Nicolas Batum has the highest salary on the team, but since signing his large contract in 2017 has seen a steep decline in play. Terry Rozier is the easy answer and the team clearly values him as the replacement for Kemba Walker. Yet he was a giant negative for the Celtics last season and is largely riding a reputation built on a few playoff games in 2018.

Cody Zeller gains the honor on the back of reliably solid two-way production. The Hornets have reliably performed much better when Zeller is available for years and crumbled when he is unavailable due to injury. While not a stretch big, Zeller scores efficiently when he has the ball and otherwise does all of the solid things one wants from a fifth starter.

It doesn’t bode well that he’s the team’s best player.

Looking Ahead: Hornets fans have to hope that Terry Rozier regains the fire of that playoff run and becomes a solid starting point guard in Charlotte; a solid starter is probably enough to make this list next season, as the team does not have many avenues to add significant talent.

Batum could shake off his extended slump and parlay his play with France at the FIBA World Cup into a bounce-back year. If Miles Bridges is on this list next year that bodes well for the future, but probably means a painful present.