Charlotte Hornets focused on three specific areas as team opens NBA training camp
These are the days Charles Lee relishes most, knowing the NBA’s ebbs and flows.
With training camp underway and official preparations for his second year as the Charlotte Hornets coach in full force, Lee is in his element. He can break out his imaginary blackboard and teach the players how he wants things done.
“Yeah, well, that’s the great thing about camp,” Lee said Thursday before the Hornets hit the court at The Citadel. “We have a little bit more time now. You’re not rushing to another game. The guys are obviously a lot more hungry for information at this time of the season, too.”
And Lee is obliging, filling the Hornets’ heads with a few core themes he wants to carry over throughout the 2025-26 campaign. He has three areas in particular he’s emphasizing, bringing them to the forefront early so there are no questions about his master plan.
Defense, defense, defense
At the top of Lee’s list is an unwavering defensive mindset. Establishing a foundation on that side of the ball is paramount, which isn’t necessarily surprising.
“You know, that’s the way to my heart,” Lee said. “I think first and foremost is defense, and so I don’t want to take my foot off the gas there in any regard.”
Sounds like he hasn’t. If anything, he’s mashing the pedal closer to the metal.
“Just toughness,” Miles Bridges said when asked what Lee’s main theme has been since they’ve convened in the Lowcountry leading up to Sunday’s preseason opener against Oklahoma City at North Charleston Coliseum. “You know how Coach is. He’s toughness, defense. As long as you give effort on defense, you are always going to get minutes on his team. So, it’s just toughness and defense.”
To assist in pounding those two things home, Lee and his staff have gone with an old-school approach, pulling out the virtual orange cones. Consider it classroom on the court.
“We’ve been able to do a ton of station work that I think helps us break down what is the actual footwork that we want on our closeouts, how are we identifying hot shooters, cold shooters, normal shooters?” Lee said. “All those personnel tendencies are really important. So I think that our coaching staff has done a great job of laying out the fundamentals.”
Picking up the offensive pace
Besides defensive tenacity, Lee is also focused on offensive improvements. During the offseason, he reflected on how the Hornets could crank it up a notch when they have the ball, leading to the altering of offensive strategies to better fit the roster.
Among the things that arose out of those brainstorming sessions was a need to play more uptempo, getting the ball up the floor faster. One of the keys is to remain under control while doing so, fending off any mental gymnastics that may creep in, leading to an ill-advised field goal attempt early in the shot clock.
“When you talk about playing fast and how you want to play fast, explaining to the guys the why is important and the how,” Lee said. “And so we try to explain to them the biggest part that we want to do. We want to make everybody on the floor a threat, and so we don’t want our shot quality to diminish by any stretch of the imagination, but we do want to get the ball up the floor.
“We want to try to help create some early advantages and mismatches, and then on top of it, we just want to get to action a lot sooner. I thought that last year it took us a while to swing the ball around the horn to then get to an action, and now you’re deep into the clock. ... So, I think a lot of it has to deal with our ball movement, our quick inbounds, and then how quick can we get into an action and still get the best uncontested shot at the end of the day?”
Getting better at ‘embracing adversity’
Rounding out Lee’s trio of points he wants to accentuate over the coming days and weeks: attack the hard times. He’s intent on getting the players to handle unexpected challenges that come into the picture during the rigors of their monthslong season, whether that’s due to key players being sidelined nursing ailments or in-game setbacks.
Neither should be a reason to falter too much and Lee doesn’t want any excuses.
“Especially on the heels of last year, but I think just in sports in general (is) having to embrace adversity,” Lee said. “And so we’ve talked a ton about. I think that we embraced the adversity last year really well. We showed resiliency and a great next-man-up mentality, but trying to equip these guys with the right tools that we’re not thrown off guard when it happens during the season.
“And it could be an injury, it could be a quarter, it could be a possession. Whatever that adversity looks like, we’ve got to be able to handle it a lot better.”
This story was originally published October 3, 2025 at 6:30 AM with the headline "Charlotte Hornets focused on three specific areas as team opens NBA training camp."
