Charlotte Hornets | ||||
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Conference | Eastern | |||
Division | Southeast | |||
Founded | 1988 | |||
History |
Charlotte Hornets 1988–2002; 2014–present Charlotte Bobcats 2004–2014 |
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Arena | Spectrum Center | |||
Location | Charlotte, North Carolina | |||
Team colors | Dark purple, teal, gray, white |
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Team manager | Rich Cho | |||
Head coach | Steve Clifford | |||
Ownership | Michael Jordan | |||
Affiliation(s) | Greensboro Swarm | |||
Championships | 0 | |||
Conference titles | 0 | |||
Division titles | 0 | |||
Retired numbers | 1 (13) | |||
Website | hornets.com | |||
Uniforms | ||||
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The Charlotte Hornets are an American professional basketball team based in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Hornets compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA), as a member club of the league's Eastern Conference Southeast Division. The team is largely owned by former NBA player Michael Jordan, who acquired controlling interest in the team in 2010. The Hornets play their home games at the Spectrum Center in Uptown Charlotte.
The original Hornets franchise was established in 1988 as an expansion team, owned by George Shinn. In 2002, Shinn's franchise relocated to New Orleans and became the New Orleans Hornets. In 2004 the NBA established the Charlotte Bobcats, which was regarded as a new expansion team at the time. In 2013, the New Orleans franchise announced it would rebrand itself the New Orleans Pelicans, ultimately returning the Hornets name, records, and official history (spanning 1988–2002) to Charlotte. The Bobcats were officially renamed the Charlotte Hornets for the 2014–15 NBA season.
In 1985, the NBA, then at 23 teams, was planning to expand by four teams by the 1988–1989 season. George Shinn, an entrepreneur from Kannapolis, North Carolina, wanted to bring an NBA team to the Charlotte area, and he assembled a group of prominent local businessmen to head the prospective franchise. The Charlotte area had long been a hotbed for college basketball. Charlotte was also one of the fastest-growing cities in the United States, and was previously one of the three in-state regional homes to the American Basketball Association's Carolina Cougars from 1969 to 1974.