Five takeaways from the Charlotte Hornets preseason – At The Hive

The preseason is in the books, and we’re only two days away from the start of the 2024-25 season for the Charlotte Hornets. It’s going to look a lot different than past iterations of the Hornets. LaMelo Ball is (hopefully) healthy, Brandon Miller is not a rookie anymore, new players have been added to the roster, and a new coaching staff is leading the way. The preseason gave us a little preview of what was to come. Here is what we learned.

The Hornets are going to shoot a lot of 3-pointers

The Hornets finished last season in the middle of the pack in 3-point attempt rate, but that was inflated by a late season surge in 3-point attempts long after the team had given up any hope of being competitive. In the first half of the season, the team ranked 23rd in 3-point attempt rate with 36.7% of their field goal attempts coming from beyond the arc.

In the preseason, 49.3% of the Hornets field goal attempts came from deep. That was the second highest rate among NBA teams behind…the Boston Celtic, head coach Charles Lee’s former employer. The Hornets made 37.7% of those looks, second to the Warriors among NBA teams in the preseason. That’s up from 35.5% last season. The new coaching staff has clearly put an emphasis on creating looks from three, and the team has the shooters to convert a high percentage of those if they’re shooting in rhythm and with confidence, two things that seemed to be lacking last season.

LaMelo Ball and Brandon Miller are going to be an explosive one-two punch

Ball and Miller led the 3-point barrage in the preseason. Both hit over 40% of their attempts, and both averaged over 25 points per 36 minutes. We’ll see what happens when the regular season starts, as I don’t expect their 3-point attempt rates to be quite so prolific for an entire season, but the duo should hang up plenty of points on a nightly basis.

Tidjane Salaün is more ready than we thought

Everyone knew the Hornets took a project when they selected Salaün with the sixth overall pick in the 2024 NBA Draft. That was reaffirmed with a summer league performance in which the incoming rookie looked very raw and not quite ready for the NBA game. This preseason was an entirely different story. He hit 40% of his 3-point attempts while showing little flashes of an all around game. He played with a lot of confidence and is clearly absorbing the coaching he’s receiving. He still needs a lot of polish, but he can get some real minutes and be a positive contributor. That didn’t look like it’d be the case a few months ago.

Tre Mann might be worth Sixth Man of the Year consideration

This one is probably a bit over-reactionary, but Mann was that good in the preseason. He averaged 29 points, 5.9 assists, and 5.4 rebounds per 36 minutes shooting 60% from the field and 47.1% from three. He created a lot of buckets for himself and showed a dribble package that we hadn’t really gotten to see up this point. It must be something to do with his new throwback look based off early 2000s Allen Iverson. The Hornets bench is going to be dangerous if he can keep up anything close to that level of play.

There is real NBA depth here

With Tidjane Salaün’s stronger than expected preseason and the team currently mostly healthy, the Hornets have actual NBA quality players that are going to be let out of the rotation at points during the season. It feels like it’s been quite a while since that was the case. The veteran presences Seth Curry and Taj Gibson looked like good players in their minutes, and both probably aren’t expected to play on an average night. There isn’t any player on the roster that doesn’t seem capable of chipping in a positive performance if needed.