The Charlotte Hornets have lost their last three games by a combined 131 points in what has been statistically the worst stretch in NBA history. Over the past four days, Charlotte lost by 53 points to Portland, by 42 points to Sacramento, and most recently by 36 points to Golden State. With the losses, the Hornets set the record for the largest margin of defeat over a three-game span, beating a stretch by the 2021-22 Trail Blazers by 17 total points. Despite the horrific run, Charlotte still doesn’t have the worst record in the Eastern Conference, holding a four-game lead over the last-place Washington Wizards.
In their past three outings, Charlotte averaged 89.3 points per game while giving up an average of 133 points per game. They shot 35 percent from the field and 23 percent from three while their opponents hit 53.6 percent of their shots and 48.6 percent from three. The Hornets were also behind in turnovers, rebounds, and assists in that span, as the only stat they were able to lead across all three games were fouls.
Charlotte hasn’t been good this year. They have young talented players, but none of them can seem to coalesce into winning basketball. LaMelo Ball, their franchise cornerstone, played in two of their past three games despite dealing with an ankle injury. In the first game he only had five points on one of ten shooting in 22 minutes, following that up with 13 points on three for 13 shooting in 29 minutes. Ball is having a great individual year scoring a career-high 26.3 points per game, but he’s struggled immensely over the past week when he’s been on the floor.
The Hornets also had Mark Williams in two of those three games, after returning to Charlotte following a failed physical for a proposed trade with the Los Angeles Lakers. Like Ball, Williams had little success on the offensive side, and didn’t contribute to any major extent on defense. Miles Bridges played in all three games, but shot only two for 11 for nine points in their latest loss to the Warriors. The Hornets have been without Brandon Miller and Grant Williams as both are dealing with longer-term injuries, but that isn’t enough to make sense of their historically bad recent stretch.
The Hornets are a young team with an average age of 26 years old, but they have a decent amount of players who have relatively little NBA experience. They’ve dealt with injuries, but nothing out of the ordinary compared to other teams around the league. Charlotte did play a close game against the Denver Nuggets prior to this stretch and they narrowly beat a Lakers team with both LeBron James and Luka Doncic before that.
But those performances make it harder to believe they’ve lost by a combined 131 points to three teams that aren’t even in the top six in the Western Conference. They had other competent wins against teams like the Pacers, Pistons, and Bucks earlier in the season, but just can’t seem to gain any momentum in the form of wins. So far this season Charlotte has a record of 14-43, currently tied for the second-worst in the league, and in line for a top pick in the upcoming draft.
Yet still, the Hornets will have to make moves over the offseason to guarantee a stretch like this doesn’t happen again. Ball is in the first year of a five-year $203 million deal, so they’ll have to continue to build around him for the time being because of the major financial commitment. They also have Miller and Bridges locked down for the next few years, but aside from them, they have a bunch of contracts that they’d most likely try to get out of before the next trade deadline.
With those large contracts, Charlotte also doesn’t have a whole lot of cap space to use over the next few seasons either. What would make the most sense is trying to draft players and hope they turn into stars, but that’s been their strategy for the past five years, and it’s led them to this point.
Charlotte is in a place where no team wants to be; struggling greatly with no real sense of direction. They are in the bottom five in points per game, net rating, offensive rating, assists per game, and points in the paint. They just went on the worst three-game stretch in NBA history, and show no signs that it was just a fluke. The Hornets have players with potential, but they just can’t seem to get a whole lot of it out of them. Their only hope should be that next season they’ll get all of their best players back and healthy, hopefully with the addition of another top prospect. But in the meantime, they’ll have to finish out this season.
The Hornets’ brutal three-game stretch has left fans frustrated, but it also presents an opportunity for bettors looking to capitalize on upcoming matchups. Whether you’re backing Charlotte to bounce back or betting against them, you can explore the latest odds on BetMGM. With a tough road game against Dallas before heading home, the Hornets will be looking to regain some momentum.
What could be one saving grace for the Hornets is that these past three games came on the back of eight road games in a row. They’ll place one more game on the road in Dallas on Thursday before they head back to Charlotte for five games, where they can hopefully find a few more wins.
The team is currently on pace to win 19 games this season, which would be their lowest in over a decade. And for Charlotte, at least they aren’t the Wizards, who are currently on pace to have one of the worst winning percentages in league history. While they have the best odds to land the number one pick in the 2025 Draft, they have even less of a sense of direction than the Hornets.
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