Charlotte Hornets Fantasy Basketball Preview | LaMelo, Miller & Bridges Outlook (2025-26)
Let’s preview the Charlotte Hornets. All of the fantasy basketball value that may or may not appear. Michael Bolton, float like a butterfly, sting like a hornet. Is that it? Thanks, Josh. It’s Michael Bolton here and it’s time for another episode of the Locked On Fantasy Basketball Podcast. Let’s get to it. Let’s get to it indeed. You are Locked on Fantasy, your daily NBA fantasy podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. Hello and welcome to the Locked On Fantasy Basketball Podcast, brought to you by Basketball Monster. My name is Josh Lloyd and words are just what? Nothing. Complicated airflow. I’m also the lead fantasy analyst at basketball.com and today’s episode is brought to you by Fanil. Right now, new customers can bet just $5. And if your bet wins, you’ll get $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. Download the app today. Thank you also for making Lock on Fantasy Basketball your first listen every day. We are free. We’re available on all platforms. All right, we’re going to get into talking about the Charlotte Hornets, their fantasy value for the upcoming season. Remember, the Lockdown Fantasy Basketball Bowl is open. We have filled a lot of um head-to-head category leagues. We filled one of the entire points league bowls. The roto one is almost filled up. We’ve got 50,75 and $100 price points there as well. There will be draft and stash leagues coming. There will be best ball drafts coming. There will be auctions coming in some form. I don’t know that it’ll be the full bowl sort of setup just because of a I need to get enough people in for auctions and the difficulty in arranging them, but we’ll see where we go with that. I think we’ll be okay, but I’m not sure they will come up. The link is in the description. It’s on the QR code on the screen. It is linkree/fb bowl. You can sign up for as many as you want. get into some competitive leagues with slow drafts and maybe some auctions coming down the line as well. We are here, like I said, talking about the Charlotte Hornets from a fantasy perspective. We did get some news on Tyler Hero, which is not obviously Hornets related. He was someone that I was pretty high on this season. He is going to miss the start of the season probably back late November. There’ll be a bit of a ramp up period in that as well. This moves him down draft boards, but it doesn’t make him off draft boards at all. like it just means you don’t want to take him inside the top 50 he might miss a month of the season which is not good but it’s not a disaster right so I would if I’m getting him in the 80s I’m very happy with that ‘7s I’m happy it moves DaVon Mitchell and Norman Pal a little bit higher but also remember that when Hero is back and we’re sitting here in the 10th of January the rotation’s going to look the same I think as what we thought it was going to look before today before Hero was hurt right so it’s not like wow that’s a huge long-term investment we’ve got in in Mitchell or Power, their value will slide back. So, just be aware of that. Let’s talk um let’s talk Charlotte Hornets. Let’s get into discussing this uh this team for the upcoming season. They are a team that has been annoying. Obviously, they got players who are exciting for fantasy players who put up good numbers at times, but can never really seem to get things cracking uh on a consistent basis. You can see my projected rotation for this team. I am uncertain about two of these spots. Three are absolutely locked in. Lamelo Ball is going to start. Brandon Miller is going to start and Miles Bridges is going to start without any question. At this time, the time of me recording this on September the 19th. I have Musa Dia as the starting center. I do not think Musadiate is a starting caliber NBA center. I don’t think he’s a huge upside player at all. Their other options are second round rookie Ryan Brener, the big and the cockroach Mason Plumbley. Now I think it’s probably more likely that Plumbley starts at center than it is Brener. We’ve seen this team with rookies, these sort of players like Brener play it very slowly. Remember that they didn’t start Brandon Miller first game that he played. There was other veterans in front of him. I think it’s more likely that Plumbley starts than it is that Brener starts. But I think that when we get to February, Brener will be a very strong fantasy player. The other position there is and this one I I don’t know but the big Areola Coniple fourth pick in the draft I’ve got him starting now but honestly if I did this in an hour’s time I’d say h maybe I he probably doesn’t they probably start Colin Ston but remember they didn’t really go out to acquire Colin Ston. They received Colin Ston along with draft picks. They were the team getting the getting dumped on a like they were getting they were getting the player dumped on them. They didn’t give up assets. They go up Ysef Nerkich and then got picks back to get Sexton. Ston can be a bench player. He can be a starter. And even if Sexton does start the season as a starter, which is possible, I’m pretty sure he won’t end there. So, it could be him. It could be Canipple. Anyway, the rotation I think is going to include Sexton obviously Trey Man, Grant Williams when he’s back from his ACL. Um Mason Plumbley again, I think will be ahead of Ryan Kburn early. As bad as that might be, I think that’s how they’ll do it. And then the other one there is Tan Sal. This also like I’m not even including Liam McNeely who I think is a better player than Sal at this point. Uh it’s not including Josh Green who’s going to miss the start of the season as well, but that’s not a great grouping as I’m sure uh you’re well aware. Let’s have a look at where some questions lie in these projections for the Hornets. One of the big questions is going to be will a center be able to emerge? at this point it’s hard to sort of yeah especially from a seasonl long projection point of view of the Hornets is that you know I think it’s going to be very different month by month like I think there is a chance plumbly starts as the starting sense and I think by February there’s a chance he’s playing zero minutes so when you look at season long numbers and this is again there can be problems with projections and how you interpret them and then also when you look at you know if you go back to a previous season and look at averages and go well look he averaged this over the course of the season We fantasy is an up and down and eb and flow game. So does it matter if plumbly averages 20 minutes a game but gets 26 for the first two months and zero for the end or 10 for the end? Like that’s not a great investment or do you draft him early if he here is the starting center and then you decide to move on later on. All of those decisions become format specific. I think Kakreer will be the better option, but he is a second round rookie and that is just not a player that gets those big opportunities out the gate and Diabate is not a very good fantasy player. He’s a incredibly low usage guy who doesn’t protect the rim or block shots. He’s a decent field goal guy who gets rebounds. I think it’s going to be very messy. There’ll be moments where we consider all three of those centers, cockrena, Plumbley, and Diabate, but it’s it’s iffy. The next question I’ve got there is, is Colin Ston just a filler player? And I I that’s not a misspelling of flyer, it’s filler because when they acquired Sexton, like I said, they got Colin Ston and draft picks. The Jazz paid them in draft picks to take Colin Ston. Now, Ston last season played 28 minutes on that Jazz team that was sort of back and forth and up and down. He’s only 26 years of age and he had 27 usage. average 18 points with four assists, three rebounds, bad steals, bad blocks, good free throws, hit his threes well. He’s a solid scorer, but his numbers aren’t great. Will he get 27 usage on this team? Almost certainly not. So, I don’t know. That’s the again when I put Canipple into that starting lineup. Are they viewing Ston as a guy? Well, yeah, look, he’s going to be a key part of what we do as we make a push for two or three months or is he just there to be a bench depth guard guy that maybe holds a role that’s elevated for a month until Kipple is more ready or Trey man’s back or Josh Green returns or whatever. So, I don’t at this point I don’t I don’t really know how they’re viewing him and that becomes hard. Like I’m not going to be interested in drafting him really because I don’t think it’s a long-term thing. The next question again seems confusing on the surface. I say is Grant Williams the projection fulcrum? And what does that mean? That means to me, well not to me obviously to me because I wrote it, but when I’m talking about what can Grant Williams be and how why is he the fulcrum, the lynch pin of this? Because when he returns from his ACL injury, what if they just say Grant Williams who played was playing 30 minutes a night last season. What if they just say he’s our starting center? He plays back up four. He plays at the five. He plays 31 minutes a night. So all of our Plumbley, Brena, Debbate decisions don’t mean anything. That opens up more minutes at the four for McNeely. Means Brandon Miller can push up. they can play smaller with Sexon and Canipple together if they’re going true small ball or if Mil or if Williams isn’t ready or he’s strictly a backup four then it squishes other guys down positions and that means Bridges plays a little bit more at the three stopping those opportunities for those other guys and it means those senders have to be a big part of it. I don’t think that we need to be looking at Grant Williams as a mustdraft player, but there were significant stretches last season when Grant Miller Grant Miller Grant Williams was useful enough to consider. So, he’s an interesting player. Label Ball has had a gigantic load over the last couple of seasons. He has had insanely high usage. He’s obviously been hurt a lot of the time, but if you’ve got Brandon Miller in year three, there’s Miles Bridges, there is Colin Ston, there’s Trey Man who should be healthy, will Ball’s load be emptied? I don’t know if it’ll be dropped that far, but he was at like 35 usage last season. Could he be 32? Will that impact his efficiency where he shot just 34 from three and 41 overall? Does that mean the 25 scoring goes up or goes down? He only played 32 minutes a night. So that’s nothing to do with usage. I tell you one thing you’ll always also hear a lot, by the way, about usage. And I know it’s a misunderstood stat at times. You will hear people talking about usage, how that relates to turnovers in fantasy. You go, “Yeah, of course.” Well, yeah. Your high usage players, they’re just going to get more turnovers. Yes. Do you know why that’s true? Is because usage is made up of turnovers. So, I don’t know why that like that not bothers me, but I think it can lead to confusion because well, this guy’s a high usage guy, so he’s going to get turnovers. Well, he’s a high usage guy in part because he gets turnovers. It’s a different it’s a different situation. It’s not that everyone with high usage gets turnovers. It’s that high that turnovers are onethird of the usage formula. So, I don’t know why I’m even harping on that, but it is important to note that all your high usage guys are turnover guys. It’s because turnovers create usage. Anyway, side point ball. We have worries about injuries, which again, I think some of them are not fake, but they are extra cautious with them because they’re not competing. As soon as Brandon Miller went down last season, they didn’t need to get ball out there as much. So, I think they might be bad again this season, which gives me some concern about LaMelo. But I do think that that usage just might it might come down a little bit. The last projection question I’ve got here for this Hornets squad is does Kipple have any space? And I’m not saying space in the term of spacing of three-point shooting. It’s does he have room to have the ball? Because if he’s starting and he’s playing next to Ball and Bridges and Miller or he plays in a second unit and then Trey man and Colin Ston come in, when does he get it? When does he get the ball to show that he can be a guy that can handle, can dribble, can drive, can shoot, can orchestrate? When is there ever space to do that? Normally a top four pick on a bad team who I think is going to start, I’d be all over considering drafting them. But I I just think given Kiple’s game that you probably won’t milk enough out of it to make it worthwhile. like we are talking about a situation where he might be just quite passive in amongst these other guys and he’s just not going to get fed to the amount that we need to get the value where it needs to be to make it make sense. We’ve got more Hornets guys to talk about undervalued overvalued guys. Today’s episode though is brought to you by Open Phone. If you’re running a business you know that every mis call is money left on the table. So think about the last time you had something that was urgent. Plumbing, electricity, maybe wind damage. You don’t wait and go, well, you know, my car can’t move because my house collapsed on it. I’ll the guy can answer the phone tomorrow, right? No, you go to the next person. That’s where Open Phone comes in. 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There’s ranks, there’s ADPs, all that sort of stuff. So, I’m not going to I’m not going to go through and highlight every single little spot where there’s four or five areas of difference. I’m mainly going to cover the ones where when you go into a draft room, the ADP and the rank look so egregiously off based on where I value a player that I think that makes them worth talking about. And that’s where I am with LaMelo Ball for ESPN points leagues because he’s just pushed down too far. Again, I think that LaMelo has a has a shot at a first round value this season. He could be a second round guy easily and while the injuries have been annoying very clearly, I think that if they were better, he would have played through most of them. But the problem is I don’t think they’re going to be that much better. But in ESPN points leagues, he’s just pushed down so far that there’s a lot of value in that. I also think that Brandon Miller sits at a spot where I just I don’t really understand why he is being as downgraded as he is. For Yahoo category leagues and Fantas category leagues, I think there’s a lot of value in him. For ESPN points leagues is one of the most egregious rankings I’ve seen where he’s ranked outside the top 100. And I just don’t for a million years understand why he would be there. Miller last season took a million three-pointers, right? And he hit them at a pretty decent rate, 36%, but he hit almost four a game, 21 points, 28 usage, 34 minutes, five rebounds, three and a half assists, a steal. Like, again, I I have been very clear on this. I do not think that Brandon Miller is a future star player. I don’t at all. But those numbers as a secondyear guy, yeah, the wrist injury happened. Cool. Don’t care. Not worried about it. I look at those and go, “Okay, maybe the usage comes down, but it’s not that high. He’s heading into year three.” Like, where he is currently positioned is way more likely to me that Brandon Miller is a top 30 player, than it is that he’s out to the top 60. Way more likely. I just I don’t understand the insane level of skepticism, especially that ESPN points rankings for Mille. I just I don’t get it. And Miles Bridges is an interesting one in certain aspects. I think Miles Bridges could end up being a disappointment. And that sounds kind of intuitive to what I’m telling you here, but and that’s mainly because I think that you when Ball and Miller are there and healthy and playing that he’s just not going to get to do enough. But still, the positioning of Miles Bridges in um on fan tracks is for that’s mainly category leaves when we’re talking fan tracks. I just think it’s it’s in the wrong spot. Like his ADP is 77. Okay. I I just I I I think that he is going to be better than that. I think there’s an outside shot at top 60. And again, I’m not a Miles Bridges guy, but I just think that we are underpositioning quite a few of these Hornets guys for whatever reason you want to do it. And some of it is the the suckiness of the team. In terms of overvalued guys, there’s one clear one that stands out to me, and that is Colin Ston. Um, it’s not to say that he’s in a um like a egregiously high position, although he’s for some reason ranked at uh 98 on ESPN points. And I couldn’t for a million years tell you why that’s the case. But he’s at 134 ADP and 136 rank on Yahoo. I just I don’t get it anywhere. I just I in those areas of a draft and 98’s very clearly done but in those areas of draft I want to take someone who there’s a shot that this guy can become a top 90 top 80 player and while Ston might have a little stretch early on in the season of being okay I I don’t think he’s got that in him even if he was to play 31 minutes a night all season I don’t think he can do that so I think it’s a wasted pick that’s probably going to get worse as the year goes on so I just I just don’t understand why we would consider Colin Ston as a draftable guy and especially not as a top 100 player. That just makes like absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. I don’t I don’t get it. I can’t explain it. I as simple as simple as that. I do not understand it. If we look at stars on this team or or star upsides, I’m talking about guys who I think are going to be top 50 or can be top 50 players. They’re names that we’ve spoken about in depth here already. LaMelo Ball who is again he’s ADP is at 27. That’s a third round guy. On ESPN it’s at 42, right? If I’m getting lame ball in round four, I’m very happy about it. I would consider it in certain spots in round two, but I probably will just settle for round three. And it would depend on what else I’ve done in other picks in my draft. But I I I still there are people who don’t believe in LaMelo Ball as a player, and that is something I don’t get behind. There are people who don’t believe in his health and I understand that part of it but I also think that again it’s about context and looking at every sit situation and suggesting like again you can make a blanket statement la never plays games not true he has done it you can say lamelo sits every back to back again not true literally look at last season and when his games when he started to miss games was after Brandon Miller got hurt and the team was absolutely spiraling and they just protected him so I’m not I am concerned but I’m not as concerned. Brener Miller, I just spent time talking about him. I I think that he should be a top 50 player. I’m not really that concerned about it. And while I don’t have Miles Bridges as a top 50 player, I don’t think it’s outrageous to think that he can get there. Again, I don’t believe that he will. I’m not not projecting that way. And I don’t think you should take Miles Bridges in the top 50 at all, but I do think there is some scope for him to be a little bit of a value. And there can be things that break right that get him into the top 50 area. I think that is very very obviously possible. In terms of the new arrivals on this team, there there are quite a few of them. Obviously, we talked about Colin Ston coming across. Let’s talk about Ryan Brener, though, because he was someone that I I thought the Celtics would take him um at the end of the first round where they took Hugo Gonzalez. I thought the Hornets would take Brener at the end of the first round where they took Liam McNeely because these are teams that were desperate for a center. Brener gives Brook Lopez a because he’s tall and white, but B because he moves slow. He’s got a slow release three-point shot and he blocked shots. He’s a drop coverage big. The numbers, if you’re watching this on the screen, there is summer league numbers. I thought he was pretty good. He only hit 29% on threes and it’s an incredibly slow release three-point shot, which is going to have some problems. Defensively, he’s a little bit iffy at times, but the shot blocking was fine. And again, when your competition in a starting center competition is Musa Diabate and Mason Plumbley, you feel pretty good about your abilities to get there eventually. If you’re in a deeper league scenario, a a weekly changes, a roto, a deep bench, a best baseball, cockbrand is a guy I would like to draft because I do think that it will turn for him, but it probably won’t be until December or maybe January to get there. Conanipple also um a new arrival on this squad. Obviously, he was picked very high in this draft at pick number four. I like Canipple quite a lot as an overall player. I think he’s going to be a very good player and a very good team. Now, unfortunately, this is not a very good team. And that’s where we get back to that space question that I asked earlier about Canipple. His summer league numbers, he averaged 15 and a half points with four assists and five rebounds. He ended up shooting 34% and only 74 from the line, which is incredibly weird cuz I think he missed like three free throws his entire season in college. And that’s a slight exaggeration, but is it? I’m going to have a look. I’m not I’m not sure it’s that much of an exaggeration to be honest. Oh, I’m a liar. It was an exaggeration. He missed 11 free throws. He was 117 of 128. The last player that we saw that I can remember that came in from college with sort of that level of elite free throw shooting. I’m sure there’s probably been someone else and you can remind me of but was Tyler Hero, right? He came in after missing let’s have a look. I think Hero missed maybe it was him that missed five free throws in a season. Um his free throw numbers in college were insane. Tyler Hero and he turned into an insane free throw shooter in the NBA. Let’s have a look. Tyler Herro free throws. He missed six in his one season in college. 87 out of 93. So, Kipple took more, but um didn’t hit him and then somehow weirdly at some he didn’t hit his free throws whatsoever. But the numbers overall are good. And this is what he will do. Think about the way that someone like Jason Tatum put up numbers in in fantasy. Now obviously years five, year four, five, six, Jason Tatum a different story where he was able to turn into a high usage 27 point per game scorer but otherwise he was a guy that would just hit averages or even think about what Denny Aier’s statline was for all of last season just hitting the averages right across the board. I think that’s what Canipple can do. It’ll be hard to do that initially but he is a an interesting player and I think he could be a really strong player in between Brandon Miller and LaMelo B. Other guys that came across you got the cockroach Mason Plumbley. We’ve got Liam McNeely who’s a stretch four who I was really impressed with him in summer league. It’s going to be harder for him to crack in. I think that he should be able to overtake Tan Salon early on but Miles Bridges playing that position and Grant Williams returning as well. McNeely is someone that I would be I’m a little bit intrigued with him from a dynasty perspective. just I think the opportunities for him don’t come this season until we get um well not until but when there are injuries and he’s again it’ll be rocky early on but I am interested in what he can bring. We’ve got more new arrivals to talk about but today’s episode is not a new arrival it’s Fanel and they’ve been here with us for a long time and the NFL season is also here and Fanil is making sure that you are ready for kickoff with a can’t miss offer right now. New customers can bet just $5 and if your bet wins you’ll get $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. You’ll love using FanDuel because it’s easy, it’s fast, it’s fun. You’ve got all of the different options of the player props and same game parlays, uh, live spreads, live betting, live same game parlays, futures bets across all sports, crossport parlays. It’s all there on FanDuel. So, when you are ready to play, you download the FanDuel app by visiting fanul.com and get started. That is ful.com to place your first $5 bet. And don’t forget to gamble responsibly. All right, we’re talking Charlotte Hornets here. We’re talking about the new players that have arrived onto the squad. We went through five of them already. Uh got another another bunch of players who have joined this team. I don’t think they’re going to matter that much, but Spencer Denwitty is a member of this team. I don’t think that Denwitty is going to be in the rotation. They’re going to have LaMelo Ball, there’s going to be Canibal, there’s going to be Ston, and there’s going to be Treyman. So I Denwitty is a far cry from a few years ago when they were a week into the season, had no backup point guard and had to resurrect Schmid to come in. Far cry from that, but Denwitty was that third string guy that won’t play each night is my guess. They also drafted Seon James in the second round. He’s a shooting guard/s small forward defensive wing who can move the ball a little bit. He shot the ball well on incredibly low volume playing alongside Conanipple, but not going to make an impact this season. And then they grabbed Antonio Reeves off the Pelicans and Drew Peterson off the Celtics. two-way guys who can come in and Reeves showed some flashes at times. I don’t think Peterson’s anything to be worried about, but Reeves showed some flashes, but this is one of those ones there where we’re talking about end of season stuff. If you want to talk breakouts, it’d be very easy for me to say that maybe Brandon Miller breaks out. Okay, I’m I’m not going to include him on this list because we’ve spoken about him already. Could Ryan Cochbrer break out? He’s a rookie. Like that’s not really a breakout. I think the name to look at and I put this here, this is not me telling you this player Musa Debate will break out cuz I I actually don’t believe that he will. This is me showing you guys who I think can or have the opportunity because so much of breaking out or even fantasy production is do you have the chance to do it? And given again we are going to harp on this the absolute turorific nature of this center position. Is it worse than the Celtics one? I would say it’s not because as much as we might think he’s not that good, the cockroach is actually a better player than any of the centers the Celtics have. Yeah. And I think Tug Bren’s a better prospect than any of the centers the Celtics have. So it’s not quite that bad. It’s terrible though. But Debbartate might get an opportunity. He played 17 minutes a night last season. He’s not a shot blocker. He’s a high field goal percentage player with bad free throws. He’s a good rebounder with no scoring, incredibly low usage. He’s already 23. He had opportunities last season, but he’s he’s not a mainstay guy. But I can’t rule it out. What if he just turns a new leaf and becomes a 17 usage player and is not scared of scoring and then somehow blocks a shot once or twice and gets 26 minutes? Again, I will be very clear on this. I do not believe that Musadiate is having a breakout season. I don’t believe that. But I do believe he’s got a position and an opportunity that where it could occur. Like let’s throw Tan Sal there. Do I think there is any shot of him breaking up? No. I think he’s bad. like really quite bad and the pos the path and the position is not there. So no, I don’t think he’s got any shot at that. Could Trey man break out? Well, not really considering Son Canipple and Ball are there and he’s coming off an injury. I don’t think the opportunity is really there for that. But the opportunity is there for Diabate. And if you want to take flyers on guys like I’d take a flyer on Diabate or Brener at the end of drafts and if you hear that Plumbley starting, you add him off a waiver wire. But that’s what we take those flyers for to see even if I think the chances of it are pretty low. There are a few injuries on this team heading into this season. Of course, one of those is LaMelo Ball, who missed the end of the season with ankle and wrist issues. The wrist to me is almost more worrisome than the ankle. He had surgery on that, I think, as a rookie, and it bothers him continually. The ankle, he’s had multiple ankle sprains. It wasn’t that much of a concern last season. I tell you, it just wasn’t that much of an issue. It was more of the wrist that caused the problem. Plus, they were tanking and they were couldn’t win a game, so they just preserved the injuries. But again, we know the concerns there. Brandon Miller wrist surgery. He is fine, ready to go. Not worried about a recurrence there. Grant Williams to his ACL probably back November, December. Like I said at the beginning of the show, Williams could be someone who just throws all of our projections here up in the air and he might turn into a 12 league guy. We don’t draft him because he’s coming back off an ACL. He won’t be ready and he’ll be ramping up and he’s Grant Williams, but he’s a name. Trey man played like five games and then the Hornets. My man Josh Longstaff let me down with the lack of reporting on man. We just heard absolutely nothing about what actually the injury was or what the procedure was, but he played like five games and he was out for the year. He was playing well. His role was interesting. But now with Canipple and Ston there, that opportunity that man had last season where he was on the fringes of 12 team rosters, it doesn’t exist anymore. I think he’s going to be fine to begin the season. They obviously brought him back on that not particularly expensive contract, but the chances of him doing what he did at the start of last season, I think, are pretty marginal. And the other one is Josh Green who is currently actively injur injured. He had a surgery on his shoulder. He’s going to miss the beginning of the season. He was also terrible last season. And I would think that having man and Ston and Canipple sort of makes him irrelevant. Maybe maybe Charles Lee wants to start him when he comes back because of defense. He shouldn’t, but we should not care at all about Josh Green from any sort of fantasy perspective. The last thing is the schedule. The only thing to really pay attention to here is they have the equal most backto-backs of anybody in the NBA. So if you do have that extra concern about LaMelo Ball sitting back to backs and gain log, he sat some but not all back to backs last season. Also remember though the difference between the most backto-backs and the fewest backto-backs is three over 25 weeks. It just does not matter that much. It shouldn’t be a priority decision for you in drafts, I don’t think. But that’s how I approach it and that is me approaching the end of the Charlotte Hornets. So Lamelo Bull to me is a guy that you look at, he’s bettering categories and points usually. He’s a second to late first upside player that you look at late third because again there are risks and it’s not just all injury. I think Brandon Miller is getting underrated. If I can get him outside the top 50, I do it every single time. If I’m sitting outside into round five out of the top 50, I will take him without any real issue. I will consider going into the fourth round. Honestly, I think that in the third round there are chances there, but I don’t know about that. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Miles Bridges to me is a 60s sort of a guy. And then you take the Flyer centers, the bunners, the diabatees, you try plumbly off a waiverwire. And then we monitor Trey Man, we monitor Grant Williams, we monitor Coniple, we monitor Colin Ston. I wouldn’t draft Caniple. I probably wouldn’t draft Ston. I wouldn’t draft man. I would draft Ball, Miller, Bridges, and a center. And we see where that goes. What you can do is you can check out the locked on fantasy basketball bowl link tree/alloofb bowl QR code links in descriptions on my Twitter feed. It is all there. And you can also subscribe to this if you are on YouTube mobile. or hit a hype which you go to the comments section and scroll across and a hype button will appear. Um, subscribe, leave your comments guys, we are done here. Thank you so much for listening everyone. See you. [Music]
NBA Fantasy Basketball 2025-26: Charlotte Hornets team preview. Josh Lloyd looks at LaMelo Ball’s health outlook, Brandon Miller’s third year leap potential, and Miles Bridges’ role after returning.
This episode covers undervalued and overvalued players across Yahoo, ESPN, and Fantrax formats, plus new arrivals like Collin Sexton and Spencer Dinwiddie. Josh breaks down the Hornets’ projected rotation, injury concerns, and schedule quirks that could impact your draft strategy.
🔑 Key Talking Points:
LaMelo Ball’s fantasy ceiling with injury risk
Brandon Miller’s breakout case in Year 3
Miles Bridges’ value across platforms
Center rotation questions and draft sleepers
Hornets’ heavy back-to-back schedule
Get the edge in your fantasy basketball draft with this Hornets preview!
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0:00 Introduction and preview
2:04 Tyler Herro injury update
3:05 Charlotte Hornets projected rotation
5:07 Center position uncertainty
7:09 Collin Sexton’s role
8:10 Grant Williams impact
9:42 LaMelo Ball’s usage
13:48 Undervalued players
16:50 Overvalued players
17:51 Star potential players
19:22 New arrivals on the team
23:57 Additional new players
24:58 Potential breakout candidates
26:29 Injury concerns
28:31 Schedule considerations
29:31 Draft strategy summary
30:33 Conclusion and outro
8 comments
What player do you project/target in the forth round for points league? Is this the round where you feel comfortable taking a risk on a injury prone player or someone who is more on the safe side? What players should we see drafted in this round?
Please make auction mock josh
Almost that time of year where I wake up, look myself in the mirror, take a deep breath and say, "This will be the LaMelo year."
I gotta lock in
Thank you so much for making this particular video series Josh.
Charlotte hasn't had a playoff team since the Bobcats era.
.. the curse is real … change the name back …. meow … !
Ball's had a big load last few years but hasn't been able to finish at all
I just can’t take lámelo it feels like a fantasy sin to take him and watch him not play enough every year