Scott Fowler: Cooper Flagg and the Hornets deserve each other. I mean that in a good way.

Scott Fowler, The Charlotte Observer on Apr 8, 2025

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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — To watch the Charlotte Hornets on Sunday afternoon in their next-to-last home game of the season in the Spectrum Center, as I did, was to watch a struggling franchise in disarray. The Hornets gave up 46 points in the second quarter, lost as usual and are now a staggering 40 games — 40 games! — under .500 this season as of Monday.

To watch the Duke Blue Devils on Saturday night was to watch a great team in temporary but fatal disarray. After a terrific regular season, Duke unraveled in the Final Four. Houston scored the final nine points of the game, all in the last 33 seconds, and upset the Blue Devils to earn a berth in the national final.

So both Duke star Cooper Flagg and the Charlotte Hornets could use a little joy in their lives right now. And I’ll tell you exactly how they could get it — by linking up with each other.

Flagg will first have to officially declare for the NBA draft this month, but surely that’s just a formality for the 18-year-old who was college basketball’s finest player this season.

Charlotte will then have to win the NBA draft lottery on May 12, which is where things get sticky. As long as they continue to sport one of the three worst records in the NBA, the Hornets will have a 14% chance of winning the lottery. Those are the best odds of anyone — the bottom three NBA teams now all have that same 14% chance. But it’s still only a 1-in-7 opportunity.

Let’s just say it happens, though, because Hornets fans deserve some hope and surely the lottery gods can’t punish us forever. Flagg might not think he wants to come to one of the NBA’s least successful franchises with all the options that will be available, but in reality, it’s a tremendous scenario for him.

Just imagine:

The Hornets have an NBA-worst active streak of not making the NBA playoffs for nine seasons in a row. The team’s last three regular-seasons have been ghoulish: 27-55, 21-61 and now 19-59.

Flagg could come to Charlotte and change everything. I believe if he played 70 or more games as a rookie he’d be NBA Rookie of the Year and the Hornets would break their playoff-less streak in 2025-26.

Put Flagg with Brandon Miller, LaMelo Ball and the rest of Charlotte’s current team and you’d have a fairly formidable young core.

And his transition would be relatively easy. Originally from Maine, Flagg is already familiar with North Carolina from his year at Duke and knows what a great basketball state we have in North Carolina. His family has been living in Greensboro this past season and could either stay there or simply move 90 miles to Charlotte. Flagg would quickly become a heralded centerpiece in Charlotte — a do-everything big man whose 3-point shooting will only get better as he gets older.

Gracious knows the Hornets could use the help. In their 131-117 loss to Chicago on Sunday, Charlotte showcased many of its problems. Too many injuries, resulting in too little depth. Too many defensive mistakes, resulting in Chicago’s Coby White scoring 37 points on 12-of-16 shooting. And too good of a home crowd, really, for the product on the court. The Hornets drew 18,499 for a Sunday afternoon game for a home team that would need the Hubble telescope to see the playoffs. This city is aching for a winner.

If — no, when — Flagg provided that winner, he’d be hailed here in the same way as Cam Newton was in 2015. It’s one thing to join an established franchise and become part of a team that always makes the playoffs. It’s quite another to lead one out of the wilderness. Flagg missed his final shot Saturday against Houston, but he was tremendous in that game, as he has been in most every game this season. He’s going to be an NBA star.

The Hornets have four games left this season, which mercifully ends Sunday at Boston. They may well not win any of them.

The first full season for Charlotte head coach Charles Lee and general manager Jeff Peterson has been dreadful if you go strictly by the win-loss record, and that’s what pro sports teams tend to do. At this point, it’s actually better for the Hornets to go 0-4 or 1-3 in those final four games: continuing to lose will assure them of the best NBA draft lottery odds possible.

So let’s root, root, root for the Hornets to lose, and then to raise the Flagg.

Charlotte barely missed out on Anthony Davis in 2012. It barely missed out on Victor Wembanyama in 2023. It’s time for some good luck. Because if Flagg actually becomes a Hornet, he can lead this team out of the depths and into, finally, some sunshine.

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