Charles Lee's determined leadership has Charlotte fully embodying 'Hornets DNA'

It's time to give Charles Lee his flowers.

Scott Kinser-Imagn Images

The Charlotte Hornets have some capital D 'Dawg' in them.

On Friday night, the deck was completely stacked against Charles Lee's squad. Charlotte was down three starters, playing their third game in five days, and squaring up against a team that boasts lofty NBA title aspirations, but the Hornets proceeded to stare down the Clippers for 48 minutes with little to no worry about the cavernous talent gap between the two squads.

Credit goes to the players for their effort levels in the midst of an unfavorable situation. Miles Bridges, Taj Gibson, Vasa Micic, Josh Green, and Josh Okogie set the tone for the evening with their dogged play, and the rest of Charlotte's young roster followed suit. Friday night's dogfight against LA was the physical embodiment of 'Hornets DNA.'

Head coach Charles Lee has repeated that two word utterance more than any other during his brief tenure in the Queen City. As a refresher, here's how Lee described the reimagined 'Hornets DNA' back in October.

"Part of Hornets DNA is understanding the love and gratitude you need to have every day. It's the love for yourself, the love for your teammates, it's the gratitude for the opportunity to be in the NBA. I think they've just grown closer and closer...I think as you saw today, and at practice, competitiveness brings out another level of togetherness...I'm proud of how the competitiveness and the togetherness continue to grow."

That competitiveness and togetherness just pours out of the Hornets when they're undermanned, and they come from the steady guiding hand of their head coach.

Of course, games like Wednesday's blowout loss to the Brooklyn Nets are liable to happen when the team is on it's 22nd different starting lineup of the season in late January, but Charles Lee's Hornets rarely have those types of nights back-to-back. The team's short memory is one of its best traits, and Lee deserves loads of credit for how the Hornets continue to play in the midst of on-court adversity.

Fans are quick to dream of greener pastures when a newly appointed head coach gets off to a slow start, but those who have been patient with Charles Lee can see his vision coming to fruition.

Lee wants his Hornets to play a specific brand of basketball that starts with getting stops on defense and flows into a fast-paced, balanced, outside-in offense that emphasizes crashing the glass and after a slow start to the season on each of those fronts, the Hornets have fully embraced Charles Lee-ball in January.

In Charlotte's last ten games they rank 12th in defensive rating (112.9), sixth in offensive rebounding percentage (32.5%), their pace is steadily increasing, and their offense ranks 14th in their percentage of points that come from three and 15th in their percentage of points that come in the painted area.

All of these changes coincide with some sweeping roster changes that have marred any sort of consistency in the early aughts of 2025. LaMelo Ball (who had seen a dramatic shift in play-style that matched Charlotte's rate statistics stated above before going down), Brandon Miller, Cody Martin, and Mark Williams have all missed time this month with injuries, and Nick Richards' spot in the rotation was handed to Moussa Diabate when the former was swapped for Okogie and a pair of second round picks. The only consistent thing with the 2024-25 Hornets is the amount of unavoidable inconsistency in their lineups.

With all of that said, Charles Lee deserves his flowers for how Charlotte continues to compete in the midst of another lost season. The building blocks of a major turnaround are being forged in the morass of both blowouts and right losses, but between Ball, Miller, Williams, and Coach Lee, the Hornets finally have some solid DNA to build out from.

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