The Charlotte Hornets are 7-17 thanks to a bevy of injuries. It’s not the kind of start Charles Lee envisioned when he took the head coaching job. However, while the record isn’t great, the Hornets do seem to have the bones of a decent team. To get to that point, The Athletic’s Mike Vorkunov has one thing they need to do.

With every loss and every injury the Hornets sustain, even the play-in game in the weak Eastern Conference gets further out of reach. That’s not necessarily the end of the world for a younger team, and it’s why Mike Vorkunov believes the only thing on Charlotte’s mind should be trades and asset acquisition.

“The Hornets’ first season under Charles Lee is going fine enough. They’re not good, but they’re not embarrassing. This is a bridge year to something better, or maybe the first of a few bridge years,” Vorkunov wrote. “To get there, they’ll need more young talent, and they’ll likely need to do that through the draft. The franchise has a few veterans it could ostensibly trade. The front office has already done well enough this past offseason to get extra second-round picks. We’ll see if they can add more picks of any sort ahead of the trade deadline.”

The Hornets have a few interesting trade pieces. Outside of Tidjane Salaun, Brandon Miller, LaMelo Ball, Miles Bridges, and probably Mark Williams, everyone else is at risk of being traded. Will they? Probably not, but they’re the ones that aren’t untouchable.

The most likely candidates remain Seth Curry, Nick Richards, Vasilije Micic, and Cody Martin. Whether or not they do make trades and how soon they do likely depends on two things. First, the health of everyone else. They can’t afford to deplete the rotation now with the injury report like it is. Second, how well they do once they’re healthy. If they catch fire and start moving up the leaderboard in the East, they may hesitate to move some key rotational pieces.

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