Predicting some of the Hornets' team stats for the upcoming season

How will Charlotte fare stat-wise in comparison to the rest of the league?

Jim Dedmon-USA TODAY Sports

The new NBA season is roughly two months away, and with it comes a new chance for the Charlotte Hornets to finally get closer to reaching their undeniably high ceiling.

Last year, a mixture of terrible injury luck, lack of depth, and off-court troubles resulted in an underwhelming position in the standings, as well as low finishes in most statistical categories. Let's take a look at some of the major statistics, and predict how they will have evolved in one years time.

Points Per Game

Last Season 106.6 (28th)
Next Season Prediction 115.2 (14th)

When the Hornets last reached the postseason in 2022, they did so by boasting one of the league's best offenses, scoring 115.3 points per game. It was a much different look last season. The lineup inconsistencies and frequent appearances from G-League-Level players resulted in a bottom-of-the-league scoring output.

Nobody can say for certain just how good Charles Lee and his staff will set up the new Hornets offense, or what type of basketball the former Celtics Assistant even plans to play. But having LaMelo Ball to dictate the play, Brandon Miller and Miles Bridges to shoulder a large part of the scoring, in addition to solid offensive options surrounding the trio is enough to be league-average.

Assists Per Game

Last Season 24.8 (26th)
Next Season Prediction: 27.3 (10th)

There's one simple solution for this problem: LaMelo Ball needs to stay healthy! Most of those who had to fill in for him during his absence have either been traded (Terry Rozier), waived (Ish Smith), or are now playing in Europe (Théo Maledon and Frank Ntilikina). Vasilije Micic and Tre Mann at least managed to somewhat fill the playmaking gap after being brought in at the trade deadline.

Now with a healthy LaMelo at the helm, they can thrive further in a reduced role. As for Ball, he has proven in the past that he's able to pass the ball at a high level, leading the Hornets to an NBA-high 28.1 Assists per game in 2022. It's going to be difficult to reach those heights again quickly under a new coach and with a reworked roster, so for now the aim should be a finish in the upper half.

Rebounds Per Game

Last Season: 40.3 (30th)
Next Season Prediction: 44.6 (12th)

At the risk of sounding redundant, this again comes down to staying healthy. Nominal starting center Mark Williams, one of the more gifted rebounders in the league, only played 19 games in the last season due to back problems. In those 19 games Charlotte ranked 20th in rebounding at 43.3 per game. LaMelo Ball is also one of the better board-getting guards which also impacted Charlotte's struggles.

Besides the deficit in rebounding ability caused by injuries, the defense also took a massive hit. The Hornets did not have great defensive personnel to begin with, but the constant rotation changes made a bad situation worse. Miles Bridges and Co. allowed the fourth-highest field goal percentage in the NBA, limiting the opportunities for defensive boards.

Conclusion

Pretty much everything went wrong for the Hornets in the last season, and it showed not only on the court but also on the stat sheet. This article was just a small collection of categories where Steve Clifford's team finished towards the bottom of the leaderboard, but there are countless more major ones such as three-point percentage, steals per game, and blocks per game.

Keeping everybody available will be part of the solution to most problems, but even if some players were to go down again, it definitely wouldn't produce such a disastrous outcome as last season. The depth Charlotte acquired around the trade deadline has bolstered the roster to the point where there are multiple passable starting candidates at every position.

That allows new head coach Charles Lee to roll out different line-ups and experiment a bit, unlike Steve Clifford whose rotation built itself out of the few remaining players. Where the latter had to bring the likes of JT Thor, Leaky Black, and Bryce McGowens from the bench, Lee will be able to use personnel with more NBA experience such as Josh Green, Tre Mann, and Grant Williams. Considering these changes, statistical improvements seem to be almost guaranteed for the purple and teal.