{"id":780997,"date":"2026-05-08T02:33:32","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T02:33:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/780997\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T02:33:32","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T02:33:32","slug":"hornets-give-coach-charles-lee-a-contract-extension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/780997\/","title":{"rendered":"Hornets give coach Charles Lee a contract extension"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) \u2014 The Charlotte Hornets gave head coach Charles Lee a contract extension on Thursday following a season in which the team improved its win total by 25 games.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><b>What You Need To Know<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Charlotte Hornets extended head coach Charles Lee&#8217;s contract after a significant improvement in their win total<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>The Hornets increased their win total by 25 games this season, marking the largest year-over-year improvement in franchise history<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>The Hornets won 44 games before falling to the Orlando Magic in the play-in tournament<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Since January 1, the Hornets led the NBA in net rating and offensive rating, while ranking fifth in defense<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b data-rte-class=\"rte-temp\"><\/b><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Details of Lee&#8217;s new deal was not released by the team.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Charles has done an outstanding job establishing a foundation for who we want to be as a team,&#8221; Hornets president of basketball operations Jeff Peterson said. &#8220;From Day One, Charles and his staff have prioritized player development, creating an environment where each of our players are committed to getting better and continue to improve.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>After winning 19 games in Lee&#8217;s first season with the team, the Hornets got hot late in the season and rallied to win 44 games before falling to the Orlando Magic in the play-in tournament.<\/p>\n<p>The 25-win improvement over his first season represented the largest year-over-year win total improvement in franchise history.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m excited about the direction we&#8217;re headed and our team&#8217;s bright future,&#8221; Lee said. &#8220;Our players have shown a real commitment to growth, and I&#8217;m proud of the culture we&#8217;re establishing together.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Lee&#8217;s next goal is to snap the Hornets&#8217; 11-year playoff drought, the longest in the NBA.<\/p>\n<p>After starting the season 16-28, the Hornets finished strong with a 28-10 record, and rookie Kon Knueppel and LaMelo Ball finished 1-2 in the league in 3-pointers made.<\/p>\n<p>Under Lee, the Hornets had the No. 1 net rating (+10.5) in the NBA from Jan. 1 until the end of the regular season, ranking atop the league in offensive rating (120.7) and fifth in defensive rating (110.2).<\/p>\n<p>Charlotte led the league in rebounding percentage (54.8%), second-chance points (19.0) and 3-pointers made per game (17.3) since Jan 1 and went on to beat Miami in the play-in tournament for its first postseason win since 2016 in the No. 9 seed vs. No. 10 seed play-in game.<\/p>\n<p>The Hornets finished January with an 11-6 record and tied for the highest point differential on the road (+151) in any month in NBA history, earning Lee the award for Eastern Conference Coach of the Month.<\/p>\n<p>Charlotte also set a franchise record with 10 straight road wins and tied an NBA single-season record with eight road wins by 25-plus points.<\/p>\n<p>Lee previously served as an assistant coach for 10 seasons with Boston, Milwaukee and Atlanta. He won NBA championships with the Celtics (2023-24) and the Bucks (2020-21).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) \u2014 The Charlotte Hornets gave head coach Charles Lee a contract extension on Thursday following&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":780998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[30319,1578,3118,1260,519,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-780997","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-app-sports","9":"tag-associated-press","10":"tag-charlotte-hornets","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-north-carolina","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116536620269419813","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=780997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/780998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=780997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=780997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=780997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}