The Charlotte Hornets have accumulated more than a significant share of their young talent, but they need to take the next step.
The Charlotte Hornets have enough young talent to justly separate two years from becoming a legitimate candidate for Eastern Conference playoff photos. But now, three seasons have been removed from Lamelo Ball’s All-Star look, but it feels like it’s four years and two years away.
In short, it doesn’t look like a path to sustained success, so the Hornets are rumoured to plan to blow up their roster again and start over.
With the sixth overall pick in the 2024 NBA Draft, the Hornets added more talent to their younger cores, choosing Tillanesaroun for the sixth from France.
Surrow was expected to be an athletic wing with a 3-point range (still is). In theory, he can handle the ball and defend well, but fans have yet to see him fully demonstrate his talent.
Averaging 5.3 points and 4.3 rebounds, he’s filmed just 29.5% from the 3-point range this season, but he thinks his teammates can still take the first step as the face of the franchise.
On March 25th, the Hornets lost to the Orlando Magic 111-104. It was their 25th loss in their third straight and their 25th loss in 32 games. Surrown only offered 8 points, so he made only one field goal, but he grabbed seven rebounds and did a solid job absorbing contact.
Surrown is the second youngest player in the NBA and he certainly has room to improve, but he and the Hornets only have time.
“Tidjane is 18 and he’s just coming from high school,” explained teammate Josh Green. “I have a lot of faith in him. He works hard, is very competitive and has the utmost confidence every time he goes out on the court. When you have it, I go to fight him every day.
Salaun joins Ball, Moussa Diabate, Brandon Miller and Tre Mann as Charlotte’s core pieces, taking as long as necessary without a concrete timeline to play competitive basketball.
Despite his inactive count statistics and shooting rates, Saruan is one of the great players in the scary draft class. The 2024 rookie is simply not very good. Anyone with a commitment, including Saruan, is on track compared to the peer.
If the Hornets decide to trade balls for future assets, that means they have the utmost faith in their 2025 choice. Unlike last summer, this next class is expected to be one of the best in recent memory, so one of the rookies they add could be a franchise piece.
The bitter reality of being top prospects like Ball, Miller and Surrown is that most of them are supposed to support players rather than stars. But if that trio can play cohesive basketball around the stars who have not yet arrived, the Hornets are two years away from winning their first playoff series since 2002, long before Surrown was born.