The Charlotte Hornets are continuing to clear the deck and will begin an expansive search for a new president of basketball operations, the team announced Monday. General manager and president Mitch Kupchak will move to an adviser role within the organization once his replacement has been hired, the Hornets said.
Charlotte’s front-office shake up comes four days after the NBA trade deadline when the team dealt mainstays of the franchise Gordon Hayward to the Oklahoma City Thunder and P.J. Washington to the Dallas Mavericks. With new ownership in place, the Hornets already traded away Terry Rozier to the Miami Heat this season and are preparing to rebuild its roster around LaMelo Ball this summer.
In August, new owners Rick Schnall and Gabe Plotkin purchased a majority interest in the team from Michael Jordan for $3 billion. The Hornets unveiled plans in January for a $275 million arena renovation and the building of a new practice facility.
The Hornets are an embarrassing 11-41 and 13th in the Eastern Conference while being hampered by a rash of injuries, including Ball, this season.
Ball is among the players drafted by Kupchak, No. 3 overall in 2020, during the executive’s six-year tenure as Charlotte’s president of basketball operations. Kupchak joined the Hornets in 2018 after working in the Los Angeles Lakers front office for three decades, including 17 as general manager.
Kupchak, 69 years-of-age, also played with the Lakers during his 10-year playing career, which began in Washington as a member of the Bullets.
ESPN was first to report news of Kupchak’s role change.
It was obvious to everyone in NBA circles that Charlotte would make a change in the front office once Jordan sold to a group led by Schnall and Plotkin. This had been one of the worst-kept secrets in the league, with the only question being why the Hornets waited this long and allowed the Kupchak regime to conduct all their trade deadline business.
Mired at 11-41 this season, Charlotte had been one of the league’s least successful teams over the last 20 years, with just three playoff appearances since returning as an expansion team in 2004. The current team has been decimated by injuries but also made several head-scratching mistakes, with the Hayward contract and the 2020 draft standing out. A reluctance to spend under Jordan has also been a persistent issue, a key reason this year’s squad has such an overmatched bench.
League sources have mentioned Philadelphia 76ers general manager Elton Brand, Chicago Bulls general manager Marc Eversley and New Orleans Pelicans general manager Trajan Langdon as the trio of leading candidates for the top position with the Hornets. Cleveland’s Mike Gansey and the LA Clippers’ Trent Redden, sources said. Brooklyn’s Jeff Peterson, Washington’s Travis Schlenk and Sacramento’s Wes Wilcox are among assistant GMs who will be in the running, sources said. Peterson, Schlenk and Wilcox worked with the Atlanta Hawks when Schnall was one of the franchise’s minority owners.
In addition to upgrading the roster and, most likely, hiring a new coach, the new exec will likely be tasked with overhauling and modernizing the team’s threadbare internal infrastructure, and most notably on the scouting and player health departments.
