{"id":830756,"date":"2026-09-08T14:30:19","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T14:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/830756\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T14:30:19","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T14:30:19","slug":"do-the-charlotte-hornets-have-a-higher-floor-or-ceiling-with-coby-white","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/830756\/","title":{"rendered":"Do the Charlotte Hornets Have a Higher Floor or Ceiling with Coby White?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"95\">The Charlotte Hornets traded for Coby White at the last deadline, a decision that had major ramifications. It gave them the ability to easily re-sign him in free agency, and it might&#8217;ve helped their decision to trade LaMelo Ball. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"9a\">Regardless, the offense will now <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/nba\/hornets\/onsi\/charlotte-hornets-player-preview-coby-white\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">primarily be run by White,<\/a> which does change the dynamic. White is not Ball. They&#8217;re two very different players, with different strengths and weaknesses. Does the pivot raise the floor, ceiling, or both for the Hornets&#8217; offense?<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"9f\">The Hornets would like to believe it at least keeps the ceiling the same. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/nba\/hornets\/onsi\/can-coby-white-replace-lamelo-ball-here-s-what-the-numbers-say\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">The numbers with White<\/a> are about as good as they are with Ball, though there&#8217;s a huge sample size discrepancy. I believe, based on the type of player each one is, that the ceiling is not higher. This offense won&#8217;t be able to do what it did last season. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"9k\">White is a good player, but he&#8217;s not an elite facilitator. He won&#8217;t serve up as many open looks to Hornets shooters <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/nba\/hornets\/onsi\/what-holds-hornets-star-brandon-miller-back-from-being-a-true-all-star\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Brandon Miller<\/a> and Kon Knueppel. He doesn&#8217;t have the gravity that Ball does, so the spacing won&#8217;t quite be the same. That, to me, lowers the ceiling. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"9p\">However, having White as the primary point guard probably does raise the floor. White isn&#8217;t going to have any of those 30-point triple-doubles that Ball could put up, but he also isn&#8217;t going to shoot 4\/18 and have six turnovers to eight assists. <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/01m20j3xpxm5m9drj9dy.jpg\" alt=\"`Charlotte Hornets guard Coby White (3) shoots over the defense of Minnesota Timberwolves forward Julius Randle \" title=\"`Charlotte Hornets guard Coby White (3) shoots over the defense of Minnesota Timberwolves forward Julius Randle \" width=\"360\" height=\"203\" class=\"undefined w-full w-full blur-[5px]\" q:id=\"a1\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Charlotte Hornets guard Coby White (3) shoots over the defense of Minnesota Timberwolves forward Julius Randle  | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"a7\">There was a large variance in the type of game Ball could have on a nightly basis. That&#8217;s not the case with White. The highs are not as high, but the lows are not as low. White&#8217;s career field goal percentage is 43.4%, and Ball has just one season above that mark, and that was his rookie year at 43.6%. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"ac\">White&#8217;s career turnover percentage is 12%. Ball&#8217;s is 14.4%. You could live with that because of the immense assist numbers (39.1% career assist percentage to Ball&#8217;s 19.3%), but that does raise the floor for an NBA offense. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"ah\">The Hornets will have to adjust the offense to fit White&#8217;s style rather than Ball&#8217;s, but the numbers were good enough and his playstyle is safe enough that it should raise the floor while lowering the ceiling. We will just have to see if that&#8217;s to this team&#8217;s benefit or detriment over the next couple of seasons. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-9\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"am\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/nba\/hornets\/onsi\/newsletter\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Subscribe to our FREE Newsletter for the latest news and updates on the Charlotte Hornets<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"22\" height=\"22\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.minutemediacdn.com\/platform\/google_discover_icon.svg\" class=\"shrink-0\"\/>Add us as a preferred source on Google<a aria-label=\"Follow si.com on Google News\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=si.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" preventdefault:click=\"\" class=\"flex h-[30px] w-[30px] shrink-0 items-center justify-center rounded-full bg-primary font-group-large text-sm font-medium text-white transition-colors hover:bg-secondary focus:bg-secondary md:w-auto md:gap-2.5 md:px-4 md:py-[5px]\" on:pointerenter=\"q-DgyP51R1.js#s_1NOcOpHWmT0\" on:touchstart=\"q-CWeSyINE.js#s_R8AiGTDeM28\" on:focus=\"q-L-r3yvNI.js#s_gxiTM6qMMu8\" on:click=\"q-DQUmEGtO.js#s_lDqay9E5m5g[0]\" q:id=\"as\">Follow<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Charlotte Hornets traded for Coby White at the last deadline, a decision that had major ramifications. It&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":830757,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3777],"tags":[7,684,473,3878,685,6],"class_list":["post-830756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-charlotte-hornets","tag-basketball","tag-charlotte","tag-charlotte-hornets","tag-charlottehornets","tag-hornets","tag-nba"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117235903954130723","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=830756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/830757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=830756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=830756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=830756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}