‘There’s no off days’: Hornets’ Liam McNeeley reveals plan to improve
Fresh off his first season as a pro, a travel agent isn’t necessary for Liam McNeeley.
“Nah, I’m not going anywhere,” the Charlotte Hornets forward said. “I’m getting in the gym.”
After wrapping up his rookie campaign with the Hornets, McNeeley quickly shifted into the next phase of his development. In looking ahead to the summer, he detailed how he intended on finding ways to improve heading into Year 2.
Chief among those tasks was increasing his bulk.
“Yeah, the main thing I want to do is come back a lot stronger,” McNeeley said in a chat with The Charlotte Observer. “I’m going to be in the weight room a lot, get my strength up. A lot of that is just getting older and maturing physically. I’m going to do everything I can to become stronger and just have a killer mindset.
“Going into training camp, I didn’t have that last year. I didn’t know what to expect. But now I do know what to expect.”
Selected at No. 29 overall in last year’s NBA Draft, the Hornets liked McNeeley enough coming out of Connecticut to trade their way back into the first round to scoop him up. He was named in the NBA.com annual GM survey as one of the steals of the draft based on where he was picked.
The 6-foot-7 forward got caught up in a roster crunch in terms of meaningful minutes, and saw action in only 31 games, leading to him spending time jockeying between Charlotte and Greensboro suiting up for the Swarm in the G League. He appeared in 18 games with Greensboro, starting in 16, and averaged 19.6 points, 4.9 rebounds and 3.3 assists in 31.5 minutes.
McNeeley’s play was certainly a boost to the Swarm, who captured the franchise’s first G League title in April after sweeping the Stockton Kings in their best-of-three series.
“Instead of just sitting on the bench the whole season, I got to play and get live reps and that’s so valuable,” McNeeley said. “It’s especially going to be valuable down in my career, getting to know what I need to work on, getting to know what I’m doing good. Anytime you get to play, you’re trying to win. And we were fortunate enough to win a championship.”
In fact, McNeeley can boast he has a pair of championships to his name since arriving in Charlotte. Don’t forget the Hornets claimed the Las Vegas Summer League crown for the first time in 2025.
He has his eyes set on repeating in the desert if he’s on the Hornets’ summer league roster once again, which is a distinct possibility. The benefits he’d receive can’t be discounted.
“Yeah, getting those reps and playing those games, having a killer mindset and just being so much more physical,” McNeeley said. “It’s going to help me more on defense and hopefully we’re going for championships. We want to win another summer league championship.”
That would continue a pretty good trend for McNeeley. He’s having a blast.
Whether it’s on or off the court. Especially the latter.
“I would say getting to know the guys,” McNeeley said. “Those are my guys, man. I’m so happy I got to be on this team and form relationships with them. Those are my brothers for life there.”
Which almost surprised him in a sense. That’s one thing that caught McNeeley off guard while navigating the 2025-26 season.
“I would say the camaraderie that our team has,” McNeeley said. “Coming into the league, everybody was telling me to expect a team that’s distant from each other, not super close. This team really has been super close and I love these guys.”
That mentality is why McNeeley and a majority of the Hornets will be in Charlotte for a hefty portion of the offseason. Following their loss to Orlando in the play-in tournament, extending the NBA’s longest postseason drought, they understand there’s still plenty of work to be done.
And that’s perfectly fine with the gym rat in McNeeley.
“Going into the offseason, there’s no off days,” McNeeley said. “It’s a great opportunity to get better, especially when other guys are on vacation. We’ll be in the gym.”
Continuing to build on a mentality he’s fostered in his year with the Hornets.
“It started last offseason in summer league — we won the championship,” McNeeley said. “And then we didn’t start off the regular season great, but then we went on a bunch of win streaks, had a nine-game win streak. And then we win a G League championship.
“And it just goes to show that we’ve flipped the perspective and the perception of Hornets’ basketball from being a laughingstock of the NBA. Now we’ve gained respect back, and we’re going to continue to win more and more.”
