What's the chance the Hornets tank next season?

[LofJ]

lol, touche yosemiteben.

That said free agency always has a big effect on the outcome of seasons. Miami is dealing with a disgruntled Wade and Dragic likely wants a max deal, Brooklyn is capped out and looking to shed salary, Milwaukee has some wiggle room but almost all of their extra cap will go to Middleton, the Pacers have 80% of their cap locked into 4 players, and the Celtics/Magic/Pistons have a lot of cap space but are competing against the Lakers, Spurs, Blazers, Grizzlies, Raptors, and Knicks for players. And a lot of the Magic/Pistons' cap will be needed to resign their own players. It is far from a guarantee that a lot of those teams will be able to sign the players they need to leapfrog us.

[W_HAMILTON]

And there's always one or two random teams that come out of nowhere (e.g., MIL, BOS), and correspondingly one or two random teams that fall off the map (e.g., IND, and -- sadly -- us).