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3 things to watch in the Charlotte Hornets' preseason trip to Oklahoma City

Originally posted on Charlotte Hornets on SI
By Matt Alquiza | Last updated Oct 9, 2025 3:21 PM ET

The Charlotte Hornets and the Oklahoma City Thunder square off on Thursday night in another battle between the two most recent NBA Champions (you know what I mean). Oklahoma City's B-team dominated Charlotte on Sunday night in Charleston, walking away with a decisive 135-114 victory.

Tonight's rematch should see the actual defending champions at full strength for the first time this preseason, giving Charles Lee and his squad a quality opponent to scrimmage. Here are some things to watch for when the game tips off tonight.

Charles Lee's rotations

Lee has been non-committal to a regular season starting lineup thus far. He started LaMelo Ball, Brandon Miller, Kon Knueppel, Miles Bridges, and Moussa Diabate on Sunday evening, but post-game, Lee said that he "...spoke with Tre (Mann), Kon, and Collin (Sexton) and I said 'You guys need to be prepared to start in a lot of different ways, and we'll see how the season goes.'"

With that in mind, it wouldn't be shocking to see either Mann or Sexton starting next to LaMelo Ball in the back court tonight. All three of Knueppel, Mann, and Sexton played 11 first half minutes on Sunday (before Lee emptied his bench), and we should expect more of the same tonight, albeit with different combinations of the three.

The other major question is at the center position where Miles Plumlee projects to join the fray after missing Sunday's contest for personal reasons. Plumlee, Diabate, and Ryan Kalkbrenner will platoon at the position, and tonight should be the first chance for us to see how Lee plays his cards with all three available.

Possessions like this give me hope that Moussa Diabate can anchor Charlotte’s defense for stretches.

Great job stalling the initial action and cleaning up for a teammates mistake at the rim.

He’ll struggle against traditional bigs, but he played well against OKC’s style pic.twitter.com/aHo769oulx
— Matt Alquiza (@malquiza8) October 7, 2025

Oklahoma City's starting center on Sunday night, Jaylin Williams, gave Charlotte fits from behind the arc, but don't expect Lee to change his rotations at center to match up with Williams and projected starters Isaiah Hartenstein and Chet Holmgren.

According to Sam Perley of Hornets.com, Lee said after practice on Wednesday that Charlotte will be 'sticking to what we do right now,' instead of fixing matchup-specific mistakes from Monday night.

Lee added that though the Hornets are facing OKC again tomorrow, the team's focus will continue to be on "sticking to what we do right now," and less about fixing matchup-specific mistakes from Monday's game.
— Sam Perley (@sam_perley) October 8, 2025

Liam McNeeley's offensive repertoire

McNeeley, the first forward off of Charlotte's bench on Sunday evening, struggled with his jump shot in Chuck Town.

The talented rookie missed all four of his three-point attempts on his way to a 1-6 night from the field. McNeeley's smooth shooting stroke was a pillar of his prospect profile and it needs to come fully online for him to realize his sky-high potential.

Charles Lee has hailed McNeeley's ability to do the grunt work on the wing (guard bigger players, pull down rebounds, run to the right spots in transition, etc.), but exposing the flashy parts of his game will be beneficial for Charlotte as well. The former UConn Husky is a talented scorer and playmaker and will be given the chance to show his immense talent level in Oklahoma City tonight.

Defense, defense, defense

Charlotte's defense got torched by Oklahoma City on Sunday evening.

The Thunder capitalized on a hot shooting night, but they did damage in the paint (44 points) and dominated the Hornets in transition (17 fast break points to Charlotte's eight). The major problems for the Hornets can be boiled down to miscommunications and lack of effort; two things Lee's defense-first brain can hope to see fixed tonight.

A rare solid moment for the Hornets defense last night.

Hard hedge/switch from Tidjane forces Topic to leave his feet to make the pass.

Great instincts by Kalkbrenner to jump the lane, tip the pass, and start the break.

He wasn’t a 4x Big East DPOY just by blocking shots. pic.twitter.com/j6HPI7iNNL
— Matt Alquiza (@malquiza8) October 7, 2025

Preseason is all about stretching your legs and working out the kinks, and the opportunity to right some of the wrongs from Sunday evening looms in just a couple of hours.