Feeling a buzz: Playoff-hopeful Hornets give Charlotte the gift of imagination
Just outside the main entrance of Spectrum Center, as a saxophone blared and drums rumbled and fans hummed past each other with life, there stood Bradley Davis.
He wore a Charlotte Hornets hat. A purple Kemba Walker jersey. A big smile. It was a sunny, gusty, picture-perfect-spring Tuesday. And in just under an hour, his favorite team was set to play a postseason game of basketball — something this city hadn’t seen in a long time.
“It’s good to see them being good again,” Davis told The Charlotte Observer, smiling. And he meant it. He’s been through thick and thin with this franchise. He said he’s been a Hornets fan all his life, since 1985, by virtue of being born and raised in Charlotte. He grew up going to the “old Charlotte Coliseum there over on Tyvola” for Hornets basketball camps and interacting with the Muggsy Bogueses and the Larry Johnsons and the Dell Currys.
“We’ve had so many down years where we weren’t really looking forward to games, not really wanting to come to games,” Davis continued. “But actually seeing them do well, the Hornets as well as the Panthers, having good seasons again, it feels good.”
He said this before the Hornets’ unbelievable 127-126 overtime win over the Miami Heat in a play-in game on Tuesday — before he saw the game that featured a gritty LaMelo Ball game-winning bucket with less than 5 seconds left, before knew that the Hornets’ season continues on Friday night against the loser of Philadelphia and Orlando for a shot at the franchise’s first playoff appearance since 2015-16.
But Tuesday’s result, somehow, was secondary to what went on before the game: fans buzzing about, excited for what’s next, letting their imaginations soar.
“Being a native from the city,” Davis said, “it feels good to have some sports teams that we can be proud of.”
How to quantify Charlotte Hornets’ season
You can quantify the success a local team has in stats and records and history. You can try to capture how good a team is based on player efficiency ratings (PER), or effective field goal percentages (eFG%), or value over replacement player (VORP, and yes, that’s a real term for real NBA analytics real teams use).
The Hornets, in fact, grade out substantially well in many of these areas. For starters, the Hornets have engineered one of the most statistically significant turnarounds in NBA history. They started 4-14, and were 11-23 to start the new year, but then caught fire in 2026 — riding that flame all the way to their first winning regular season (44-38) since 2021-22.
There’s more, too. For instance, they employ the player who made the most 3-pointers in the league (270); Kon Knueppel — who Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said was his choice for rookie of the year — was the first rookie in NBA history to earn that distinction. The Hornets’ starting lineup also boasts the highest offensive rating among all starting lineups, per the NBA’s advanced stats — and that group, in fact, has the highest offensive rating of all lineups employed across the NBA that have logged at least 172 minutes together.
There are more examples of such calculations. Numbers can help put into perspective the wonders of LaMelo Ball; the striking athleticism of Brandon Miller; the clutchness of Coby White, a North Carolina native and UNC Tar Heel star who arrived back to his home state midseason to hit Tuesday’s game-tying 3 in regulation with hands in his face, turning a broken play into one of those shots that could be replayed around this town forever.
But numbers fail to capture the total picture of what these Hornets have gifted Charlotte this season. Numbers can’t explain how these Hornets have given lifelong Charlotteans the goosebumps they once felt in the mid-80s and early 90s. Numbers can’t explain how special it is that lifelong North Carolinians, from all corners of the state, were compelled under one roof for one night. Numbers don’t resonate with the elementary-aged kids who dream to one day shoot like Kon or pass like LaMelo or fly like Brandon.
These Hornets, instead, have given Charlotte a gift that might not be able to be quantified at all:
The gift of imagination.
Take for example Hope and John Astle, who purchased season tickets for the first time this year. They’re renewing their tickets for next year. John, from Whiteville, has been a Hornets fan since he was 8 years old, he said.
Both Hope and John said before the game that they’d be sad if the Hornets lost on Tuesday. But both were quick to say Tuesday’s result had little to no bearing on how they’d feel about what they saw all season.
“I’ll be initially disappointed,” John said. “But after a few days, when I’ve had some time to think about it, when I think about the historic turnaround this year, and just how exciting it’s been to bring our daughter to games, enjoying this as a family ... I’m going to be really excited about the future and not as disappointed.”
Then again, John won’t have to worry about that. There’s more basketball to play.
Said Hope: “(What the Hornets are building) makes you feel connected to the players. It makes you want to support them. It feels like supporting them is supporting the city, and the players seem to feel that too.”
‘Kick some butts!’
You could feel that same passion, just in a different kid-like energy, with Kristen Roberts and her two young sons, Wells and Penn, who both wore Hornets jerseys.
Penn’s two favorite players are Knueppel and Ball. He said he loves the Hornets because Dad likes the Hornets, and he wants to be like his dad just as much as he wants to be like his heroes on the NBA court.
“I’m ready to kick some butts!” Penn said.
“We’ve been coming for four years consistently,” Roberts said, holding Penn in one arm and keeping one eye on Wells, who was too interested in all the hoopla around him to stand still. “I think the team has great energy, and it’s really fun to watch them.”
Before filing into Spectrum Center, Davis was asked if Tuesday’s result mattered at all to how he felt about this team — a team that, thanks to its historic turnaround, awakened a fan base that had been asleep for years.
“Absolutely not,” Davis said. “I don’t think anybody had any expectations for the Hornets coming into this year.”
From here on out, that changes.
Fans now have expectations, reasons to dream — the kind of gift numbers can’t begin to explain.
This story was originally published April 14, 2026 at 10:28 PM with the headline "Feeling a buzz: Playoff-hopeful Hornets give Charlotte the gift of imagination."
