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No. 10: Charlotte Hornets
Last Season: 33-49
11th place in East; missed playoffs
This was a big summer for small markets. San Antonio reeled in LaMarcus Aldridge. Milwaukee landed Greg Monroe. And Charlotte got ... well, never mind.
Such is life for the bumbling Hornets, who are finding out the hard way that building a winning team in a non-destination city is tough sledding. The organization's name-reset and purple-and-teal makeover brought good vibes, but the sensation lasted about as long as the average bee sting. The Lance Stephenson signing turned out to be a huge whiff and the Hornets finished 33-49, five games out of a playoff spot.
Good news: The Stephenson era is over.
The bad news: The team still doesn't have a bankable star.
The Hornets added Nicolas Batum, Jeremy Lin and Frank Kaminsky III -- all solid pieces. But there's still no sign of a top-50 player on the roster. Even so, the Hornets enter 2015-16 thinking it can't possibly be as bad as 2014-15. ... Right?
Desperate for shooting and playmaking after losing Josh McRoberts, the Hornets brought in Stephenson on a three-year, $27 million deal. It didn't go well. Stephenson lost his starting job by January after suffering a strained groin midseason and finished with the worst 3-point-shooting season in NBA history with a minimum of 100 attempts (17.1 percent).
However, the Stephenson debacle doesn't explain the entirety of Charlotte's woes. Al Jefferson had flat tires all season and the Hornets routinely fired up bricks around him from the perimeter. Kemba Walker shot below 39 percent from the floor and only one rotation player (Marvin Williams) could hit a 3-pointer at a league-average rate. Michael Kidd-Gilchrist missed 27 games with ankle issues, and the Hornets limped to the worst offense in the NBA on a per-possession basis if we don't count the New York Knicks and Philadelphia Sixers, two teams who didn't mind missing everything.
The sickly Hornets offense was rescued somewhat by the midseason acquisition of Mo Williams. (Are there sadder statements?) However, the team's youngsters -- Cody Zeller, Noah Vonleh and Bismack Biyombo -- weren't able to develop into anything more than roster filler. Second-year head coach Steve Clifford scraped together a ninth-ranked defense, but the offense was just too anemic. After a hot January that raised playoff hopes, the Hornets shut down Jefferson in early April and lost the last six games by an average 16.8 points. Uncle.