The history of the National Basketball Association's Charlotte Hornets goes back to 1985, when George Shinn first thought up the idea of bringing professional basketball to Charlotte, North Carolina. Since then, the Hornets have recorded ten playoff appearances under two different franchises.
In 1985, the NBA, then with 23 teams, was planning to expand by four teams by the 1988–89 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. The Atlantic Coast Conference's four North Carolina teams, as well as local teams UNC Charlotte, Davidson, and Johnson C. Smith, had large and loyal fan bases in the city. 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.
Some critics doubted that Charlotte, then a city mostly known for banking, could support an NBA team; one Sacramento Bee columnist joked, "The only franchise Charlotte is going to get is one with golden arches." However, Shinn's was the Charlotte Coliseum, a state-of-the-art arena under construction that would seat almost 24,000 spectators – the largest basketball-specific arena ever to serve as a full-time home for an NBA team. On April 5, 1987, NBA Commissioner David Stern called Shinn to tell him his group had been awarded the NBA's 24th franchise, to begin play in 1988. Franchises were also granted to Miami, Minneapolis-Saint Paul, and Orlando.