The Saturday Stinger
Your Weekly Charlotte Hornets Notebook that’s not afraid to laugh at itself. Not here to convince you with stats, just good prose; I can’t afford Synergy.
The Sermon on the Spectrum (Center)
My big picture, Weekly State of the Hive Address:
We’re staring down a way-too-familiar tiebreaker situation at the back of the Eastern Conference playoff picture.
For the Hornets (fans), at least.
I can imagine it now. There are nine games left, so bear with my daydreams for a moment here. Charles Lee is in the locker room. Last game of the season against New York is over, and the Hornets got the crap end of a big Eastern Conference tiebreaker.
“It’s okay, everyone. Home-court, play-in, playoffs – doesn’t matter. We’ll take anyone, anywhere.”
Lee gets a clap from his team, they break down the huddle, and move on.
Lil ‘ole me? Oh, I’ll never move on.
Easy for you to say, Charles! How inconsiderate of you not to think of the Hive and me!
You’ve done lots for the Hive, Charles. I’ll be transparent about my tiebreaker PTSD, so maybe you can understand why none of us want to see it happen again.
Let’s just… end the season on a fourteen-game win streak and call it a day.
Who can possibly stand another instance of 2015-2016?
Or the Finale 2013-2014 Bobcats, oh-so-close to avoiding the LeBron-led Heat, who were undefeated against the Bobcats and Hornets in his Heat tenure?
Most commonly known, the ‘15-’16 Hornets finished sixth in a four-way tiebreaker from the third-seeded Heat down to sixth-seeded Charlotte. I’m sure Steve Clifford gave an eerily similar message (I wasn’t there) to his team in ‘15-’16 after the season’s finale that my fake Charles Lee gave to a non-existent, hypothetical entity.
That didn’t matter in game seven of 2016 in Miami after the seeding doomed the universe to see Dwyane Wade clash with Purple Shirt Guy in game six, leading to a South Beach blowout versus the Hornets in game seven.
That same speech was rendered irrelevant in April of 2014, too, after another collision course with Miami occurred because the Washington Wizards did not lose on the regular season’s finale day.
The Bobcats beat the third-seeded Chicago Bulls to end the ‘13-’14 year; the Bulls, whom, had the Wizards lost on finale day, the Bobcats would have played instead of Miami.
The one time Charlotte DID own the tiebreaker in the past twenty years when it mattered, the Wiz of all teams (no offense, John Wall; that song was awesome when I was 14!) took care of business and didn’t give the ‘Cats the upper hand.
If the Hornets had anything like their own version of the Red Sox “Curse of the Bambino” lingering around, we’ve seen this 2025-2026 version of the Hornets and the real Charles Lee squash most of whatever it was.
Hornets fans have seen lots of crap ends of the draw in the past two decades. From the lottery to bad draft selections to bad tiebreaker outcomes.
Hell, Charlotte hits big on another top-four selection for the third time in five years, and the NBA and Adam Silver COINCIDENTALLY come up with the most convoluted ‘anti-tanking’ solutions any of us have ever seen in pro sports.
Let’s keep busting the status quo, Charles. It starts tonight against the Sixers.
The last three segments of Owen Watterson’s weekly newsletter can be found here.