On Friday evening, the Charlotte Hornets improved to 3-5 on the young 2023-24 NBA season with a narrow 124-117 road win over the Washington Wizards. The game was the second straight that the two teams played one another, with the Wizards winning the first time around; however, on Friday, the Hornets used a balanced all around scoring effort in order to pick up the road victory.

One player who had a standout performance for Charlotte was center Mark Williams, who had a monster double double of 21 points and a career-high 24 rebounds on the evening. Fifteen of Williams' 24 rebounds were offensive rebounds, which was a career high for him, per Charlotte Hornets PR on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. Also, 15 offensive rebounds is the most that any Hornets player has ever recorded in a game in franchise history. The previous record of 11 was held by Mason Plumlee, Dwight Howard, Emeka Okafor (twice), Larry Johnson, and Alonzo Mourning, per Sam Perley of hornets.com.

At 21 years old, Mark Williams figures to be a strong building block for the Hornets going forward. The former five star recruit was selected by Charlotte with the 15th overall pick in the 2022 NBA Draft after spending his college career at Duke University.

Meanwhile, the Hornets now sit at 3-5 on the young season. Not many expect Charlotte to be playoff contenders in 2023-24; however, with the talented array of young pieces that Charlotte has, led by LaMelo Ball, it may not be wise to completely discount the Hornets from the playoff race just yet.