ESPN has revealed their NBA Basketball Power Index (BPI) for the 2024-25 NBA season. According to the site, BPI is “meant to be the best predictor of a team’s performance for the rest of the season.”

According to the rankings for the upcoming season, the Hornets are -2.4 points compared to the expected average NBA team, good for the 23rd-best mark in the league. The -2.4 points is made up of -1.3 points on the offensive end, and -1.1 points on the defensive end. 

The projections also have the Hornets at the 22nd-best projection in the league at a 37.0-45.0 record for the upcoming season, jumping the Hawks who rank one spot higher in BPI.

The numbers are a notable improvement over where the Hornets finished last season, where the -4.7 points on offense and -2.9 points on defense led to a total of -7.6 points compared to the average NBA team, the third-worst mark in the league.

While the Hornets finished ahead of the Washington Wizards and Detroit Pistons last season in the metric, the new season’s projections also put the Hornets ahead of San Antonio, Brooklyn, Utah, Toronto, and Portland.

All four of the teams directly ahead of Charlotte in the projections (Atlanta, Chicago, Orlando and New York) at least made the play-in games in the Eastern Conference last season, meaning the Hornets could be in the mix for that type of success. The Knicks even won a playoff series last season as the two seed, which is solid company for the new-look Hornets under first-year coach Charles Lee.

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