New Orleans Hornets

The New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets are a professional basketball team based in New Orleans, Louisiana. They play in the National Basketball Association (NBA). more...

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The team temporarily relocated to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, for 2005-06 and 2006-07 seasons due to damage caused by Hurricane Katrina.

Home arenas

Charlotte Coliseum (1988-2002)

New Orleans Arena (2002-present)

Ford Center (2005-present)

Franchise history

Charlotte

In 1987, the NBA awarded an expansion franchise to four cities. Charlotte, North Carolina was one of those cities blessed with a new NBA team, along with Miami, Florida for the 1988-89 season. Minneapolis, Minnesota and Orlando, Florida were awarded teams for the 1989-90 season. The new franchise in Charlotte was originally named the Charlotte Spirit. However local fans in the Charlotte area took exception to that nickname. Not long after entering the league, the name was changed.

The franchise played its first game as the Charlotte Hornets in October 1988. The name "Hornets" was chosen because of its traditional use by Charlotte's professional sports teams. Charlotte Hornets was used by the city's minor league baseball franchises from 1901 to 1972, and also by its entry in the short-lived World Football League in 1974 and 1975. The name derived from the city's fierce resistance to British occupation during the Revolutionary War, leading Lord General Cornwallis to refer to it as the "Hornets' Nest".

The 1988 team was led by guard Kelly Tripucka, who provided instant offense. Tripucka was Charlotte's top scorer for the franchise's first two seasons. The team also had sharpshooting rookie Rex Chapman, who was a long-distance scoring threat. For the 1990-91 season, the team picked up guard Kendall Gill in the NBA Draft, and got slightly better, but still managed to win the draft lottery and the rights to the number one overall pick in the following year's draft.

For the 1991-92 season, the Hornets drafted power forward Larry Johnson from UNLV with the number one overall pick. Johnson had an impact season, finishing among league leaders in points and rebounds, and winning the 1992 NBA Rookie of the Year Award. Kendall Gill led the club in scoring, with over 20 points per game.

In 1992-93, the team won the second pick in the draft, using it to select Georgetown center Alonzo Mourning. The Hornets now had two 20-10 threats in Johnson and Mourning, who with Gill formed perhaps the league's top young trio. It was good enough for fifth in the Eastern Conference and a playoff spot, where they upset the Boston Celtics with Mourning's famous series-winning shot. However, they lacked the experience and depth to defeat the New York Knicks.

The next few years were marked by injuries to Johnson and Mourning, though they did get back to the playoffs in 1994-95, only to be beaten by the Chicago Bulls.

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