{"id":18259,"date":"2025-07-23T15:28:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T15:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/18259\/"},"modified":"2025-07-23T15:28:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T15:28:07","slug":"hornets-front-office-exec-believes-charlotte-pulled-off-nbas-best-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/18259\/","title":{"rendered":"Hornets front office exec believes Charlotte pulled off NBA’s ‘best draft’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Charlotte Hornets<\/a> went into the NBA draft with three picks and ended up making four selections, all of whom look to be future contributors. A few of them, especially after Summer League<\/a>, look like their contributions will happen on day one. It was, by most accounts, a very solid draft<\/a>. <\/p>\n

According to one Hornets executive who works in the front office, it was not only a solid draft but the league’s best. Per Spotrac<\/a>, one exec said plainly, “We had the best draft in the league. Of course, 29 other teams will probably say the same thing,\u201d a Hornets front office executive said. \u201cBut we\u2019re fired up.”<\/p>\n

Why does this executive feel that the Hornets nailed it? Because the team got exactly what it wanted: players to complement existing stars, LaMelo Ball and Brandon Miller. Kon Knueppel and Liam McNeeley, according to the executive, are perfect options for that. <\/p>\n

“We didn\u2019t want one-skill guys. We all saw Indiana and the Thunder, right? You have to be able to be versatile. We\u2019re getting there,” he said of Knueppel and McNeeley. But the draft didn’t end after round one. <\/p>\n

The exec went on, “We hit in the second round with Sion (James) and Ryan (Kalkbrenner)<\/a> too. We considered both of them at 29, but knew that Liam wouldn\u2019t come back around. So, we held our breath and still got both guys. Internally, we\u2019ve said we feel like we have four first-rounders, because all four guys we got had first-round evaluations on our board.\u201d<\/p>\n

Time will ultimately tell whether or not the Hornets did nail it and determine which team actually did have the best draft. For now, it looks good on paper, and internally, there’s a strong belief that the draft this year was a huge turning point for this franchise, which is incredible given that they missed out on the first overall pick. <\/p>\n

LiAngelo Ball reveals who he believes is the best of the Ball brothers<\/a><\/p>\n

Ex-Hornet Josh Okogie finds fresh start with Western Conference contender<\/a><\/p>\n

Charlotte Hornets updated depth chart: Did Summer League change Charles Lee’s projected rotations?<\/a><\/p>\n

NBA writer: Put Kon Knueppel in the Hornets’ starting lineup<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Charlotte Hornets went into the NBA draft with three picks and ended up making four selections, all…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18260,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-18259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}