Simulated results of the Charlotte Hornets' upcoming season on NBA 2K25

The videogame foresees a few eventful months for Charlotte.

Trevor Ruszkowski-Imagn Images

With every new NBA season comes a new edition of NBA2K, which allows us to predict the upcoming year of action. Ahead of the Charlotte Hornets opener against the Rockets, we did just that and ended up with some interesting results.

First of all, let's answer the most important question!

Where did the Hornets finish?

With a record of 30-52, the Hornets finished 13th in the Eastern Conference.

A pretty disappointing placement, especially considering a hot 6-3 start, which included back-to-back wins versus Boston. Even the following 7-game losing streak didn't hurt too much, as Charlotte hung around the play-in spots until January. Then came another nine-game-skid, which pretty much put all postseason hopes to rest. The remainder of the season went alright, and the Hornets even managed to win their last two games against Boston, sweeping the season series.

As you might have guessed, LaMelo and Co. didn't find much success in the NBA Cup either, where they were only successful once in four contests. It was hard to pinpoint the reasons for Charlotte's struggles at first, as almost every important roster piece played 80 or more games. The only players who missed considerable time were Cody Martin and Tre Mann, who each had to sit out for half a month.

But obviously, there are other factors that could have impacted the results, such as:

Who got traded?

The Hornets only traded twice. Both transactions took place in mid-December.

First, Seth Curry was sent to the Denver Nuggets in a one-on-one exchange for power forward Hunter Tyson, who went on to play a grand total of three games for Charlotte.

About a week later, Grant Williams and Taj Gibson were packaged, to obtain John Konchar and a 2026 1st round pick swap by the Grizzlies. Again, the player the Hornets got in the trade didn't contribute at all, suiting up in only seven games. It should be safe to say that the real front office will be a bit smarter.

Were there at least any records broken?

Well, not really. LaMelo Ball, who was named an All-Star and made the All-NBA third team, hit nine threes in a game against Miami. That would be one make shy of matching the franchise record. As a team, the Hornets had several great scoring performances, putting up 143 points twice, which would be the third-highest point total in Hornets history.

So if the trades had little to no impact, there was an insignificant number of injuries and the offense worked well – what exactly was the problem?

The Hornets main issue (According to 2K)

The defense. Listing all of the defensive and rebounding categories in which the Hornets finished close to the bottom is not necessary, because it was nearly all of them. From blocks and three-point percentage allowed, to defensive and offensive rebounds, Charlotte was awful everywhere. The only exception was the high number of steals Charles Lee's squad was able to get.

A look around the league

To maybe put the Hornets' performance into perspective a little bit, let's see what else was going on around the association.

Luka Doncic won the MVP award and led his Mavericks to the first seed. Things got a bit weird in the east, as the Bulls claimed the top spot in the conference, only to get bounced by the Miami Heat in the first round of the playoffs.

Erik Spoelstra managed to lead his ball club to the conference finals, where they lost to the Bucks. In the west, the Timberwolves and Thunder met in the conference finals (so far so realistic), only for Julius Randle to be named the MVP of the series. As you can tell, 2K might not offer the most realistic simulation, so there's no reason to worry about any of these results.

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