NBA Draft Lottery: Hornets lose Cooper Flagg sweepstakes. Is anybody surprised?
In the most predictable outcome of the NBA season Monday night, the Charlotte Hornets did not win the NBA Draft Lottery.
It stung, of course. The Hornets will pick No. 4 in the 2025 NBA Draft on June 25. At No. 1, the Dallas Mavericks will get to choose former Duke star Cooper Flagg — a generational player in most everyone’s opinion. But even though Dallas had only a 1.8% chance to get the No. 1 pick and the Hornets had a 14% shot, can anyone around here really say they were surprised at how this worked out?
If the Hornets had captured the Flagg, now that would have been the shocker. If it weren’t for bad luck, the Hornets would have no luck at all.
And while that’s not quite true in lottery terms, it feels true, doesn’t it?
The lottery isn’t coming to save the Hornets. Missing out on Anthony Davis, Victor Wembanyama, Zion Williamson and now Flagg attests to that. They are going to have to save themselves, starting with this No. 4 overall pick and going from there.
Charlotte has been in the NBA lottery 26 times (including the last nine years in a row). It has won the No. 1 pick exactly once: in 1991, when the Hornets were rewarded with Larry Johnson. So, 1 for 26 — not a great shooting percentage.
Now it’s also technically true the Hornets’ lottery luck hasn’t always been bad in recent years. They moved up five spots in 2020 to get to select LaMelo Ball at No. 3. They shot up two spots in 2023 to No. 2 overall and then used that pick on Brandon Miller.
But it’s never the big winner. It’s never No. 1 — or at least it hasn’t been since 1991. And that feels very much like the way the Hornets’ seasons have gone for most of their history.
They have missed the NBA playoffs for nine years in a row. They just finished up a 19-63 season that was remarkable only for its unremarkable nature. This is a team that not only has never made the Eastern Conference final, but which has also gone from 43 to 27 to 21 to 19 victories over the past four years.
Would Flagg have changed that completely? I think he would have. He was the exact sort of catalyst that the Hornets needed.
But is he the only prize in the upcoming NBA Draft? He is not. Rutgers teammates Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey might end up as No. 2 and No. 3 overall, but the Hornets will be able to grab one if not.
And even if Harper and Bailey are both gone, the Hornets will be able to choose from the likes of Baylor wing V.J. Edgecombe, Oklahoma guard Jeremiah Fears, Texas wing Tre Johnson, South Carolina forward Collin Murray-Boyles or two other Blue Devils not named Flagg — Kon Knueppel or Khaman Maluach. At least one of those guys will likely be a future all-NBA player. The Hornets just need to figure out which one.
No. 4 isn’t a terrible pick by any means. Charlotte once chose Cody Zeller at No. 4 (the pick didn’t get a great reception, but Zeller gave the Hornets eight solid years). Chris Bosh, Russell Westbrook and Chris Paul were all No. 4 picks.
And it could have been worse. The Washington Wizards, for instance, had the worst record in the Eastern Conference last year and somehow wound up with the No. 6 pick, two behind Charlotte.
The Hornets tried to put the best face on the situation. As Charlotte general manager Jeff Peterson told the team’s website after the draft: “We’re excited (to have the) fourth pick, and this is a deep draft.”
Peterson added that the team obviously “wanted to win the lottery, but at the same time, this is what we do all work for over the course of the season, to prepare for all the players in the draft.”
The Hornets also have two early second-round picks in the draft, so they will wind up with three picks in the top 35. And all that is well and good.
But what they didn’t wind up with is Cooper Flagg. It was another loss in a series of them.
But we can’t really be startled, can we? Losing is what the Hornets do best.
