On Sunday evening, the Charlotte Hornets won the NBA Summer League championship with a narrow victory over the Sacramento Kings. Kon Knueppel was named the Summer League championship game MVP for his performance in the contest, which included a three-pointer down the stretch which essentially put the game on ice for the Hornets.
Championships of any kind have been hard to come by for the Hornets' organization over the years–in fact, Sunday's Summer League championship victory was the first championship of any sort for the Hornets in their entire history.
That includes NBA titles, conference titles, divisional titles, and Summer League titles, per FanDuel on X, formerly Twitter.
Overall, fans of the Hornets have to be happy with what they saw from their team during their time in Las Vegas.
The Hornets' two first round draft picks, Liam McNeeley and Kon Knueppel, both largely performed well in their time during Charlotte's Summer League run.
The Hornets are desperately hoping that 2025-26 is the year they will be able to turn their franchise's fortunes around and finally end their postseason curse–Charlotte hasn't appeared in a real NBA playoff game since the 2016 season unless you count a couple of play-in game appearances, both of which ended in the nine vs ten game.
In theory, Knueppel and McNeeley will be able to provide point guard LaMelo Ball with some much-needed floor spacing this season, which has been a major issue for the Hornets in recent years.
Furthermore, Ball will need to show that he can stay on the court consistently this year, as injury concerns have become a large concern for the talented point guard over the last few seasons.
Still, Hornets fans for the first time in a while have something to be excited about, and clearly, they will take any championship they can get, even if it's just in Summer League.