Are the Hornets cursed in the NBA draft lottery? It has been 21 years since any magic
Is Charlotte really cursed when it comes to the NBA draft lottery?
You’d certainly think so, based on Hornets fans’ frustration the past few years. The consensus on social media is the Hornets can only be harmed by the annual process, which takes place 8:30 p.m. Thursday (ESPN), awarding the top four picks in the Oct. 16 draft. The Hornets have a 6% chance of landing the No. 1 pick and a 26.2% chance of landing in the top 4 this year.
The Hornets had an amazing string of lottery luck in the 1990s, allowing them to draft three of the best players ever in Charlotte. But it’s been 21 years and a second expansion team since the weighted lottery has done Charlotte any favors.
The Observer broke down every lottery the Hornets/Bobcats participated in since 1989 (the original Hornets and the Bobcats were pre-assigned lottery picks their inaugural seasons in 1988 and 2004):
The results: Three times they jumped up into the top-3 selections (the lottery expanded to four spots in 2019). Six times, they slipped back. Nine times, it didn’t change their first-round pick at all.
The best and worst lottery moments in Charlotte history are ...
Feel Zo good
In 1992, the Hornets jumped all the way from the eighth pick to No. 2. It was a no-brainer to draft Georgetown center Alonzo Mourning, one pick after the Orlando Magic selected Shaquille O’Neal.
Mourning became a Hall of Famer in 2014. He was a Hornet for only three seasons, before leveraging a trade to the Miami Heat. But all this time later, his game-winning jumper from the top of the key, to close out the Hornets’ first-ever playoff series against the Boston Celtics, is still the most iconic shot in Charlotte NBA history.
LJ luck
In 1991, the Hornets had a 10.6% chance to jump from No. 5 to No. 1. It happened, leaving then-general manager Allan Bristow with the decision between UNLV power forward Larry Johnson and another Georgetown center, Dikembe Mutombo. Bristow chose LJ, who was rookie of the year, a two-time All-Star and once All-NBA before a serious back injury. Johnson was traded to the New York Knicks in 1996 in a deal that acquired Anthony Mason.
Baron bonus
The biggest leap in Charlotte draft-lottery history was in 1999. The Hornets finished the lockout-shortened ‘98-99 season at 26-24, one game out of the playoffs. In the lottery, they jumped all the way from 13th to 3rd, allowing them to draft point guard Baron Davis.
Davis became a two-time All-Star and once All-NBA. He played 13 seasons for five franchises.
Now, the downers...
Worst, not to first
The Hornets dropped only one spot in 2012, but the ramifications were huge and this one probably stings Hornets fans most.
After going 7-59 — the worst single-season winning percentage in NBA history — the Hornets ended up second in the lottery. (They had a 25 percent chance of the top pick.) That cost them Kentucky big man Anthony Davis, an obvious All-Star prospect. The look of pain on then-general manager Rich Cho’s face, when New Orleans received the top pick, was palpable.
Cho ended up drafting Davis’ Kentucky teammate, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. While MKG started 356 games for Charlotte, the clearly better alternative would have been Bradley Beal, who went third to the Washington Wizards.
Point imperfect
The Bobcats had the NBA’s third-worst record their inaugural season of 2004-05. Had that held in the lottery, they would have had their choice between two elite point guards in Chris Paul or Deron Williams.
But the lottery dropped them to fifth, where they instead took North Carolina point guard Raymond Felton. Nothing terrible about that pick — Felton was a five-season starter for Charlotte and lasted 13 NBA seasons — but the gap between him and Paul or Williams was huge.
No weighting, no luck
Early on in the Hornets’ existence, the NBA didn’t weight teams’ lottery chances based on their records. That hurt Charlotte in 1989, when they had the second-worst record but received the fifth-best draft pick.
That became North Carolina big man J.R. Reid, who had two decent stints in Charlotte. But had they drafted second, they would have had their choice of Glen Rice or Sean Elliott, who combined for five All-Star appearances.
At least the Hornets got Rice later in his career, in the Mourning trade with Miami, but that lottery clearly set the Hornets back.
This story was originally published August 20, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
