1988–89 Charlotte Hornets season

The 1988–89 Charlotte Hornets season was the first season for the Charlotte Hornets in the National Basketball Association. The "Charlotte Hornets", along with the Miami Heat, joined the NBA as expansion teams during the 1988–89 season; the team was originally going to be named the "Spirit", but later on changed it to the "Hornets". The team revealed a new primary logo of a hornet bouncing a basketball, and got new pinstripe uniforms, adding teal and purple to their color scheme. The Hornets played their home games at the Charlotte Coliseum in Charlotte, North Carolina.

In the 1988 NBA expansion draft, the Hornets selected veteran players like Dell Curry, second-year guard Muggsy Bogues, Mike Holton, Dave Hoppen, Rickey Green, and Mike Brown, who was then traded to the Utah Jazz in exchange for Kelly Tripucka. The team also signed free agents; Kurt Rambis, who won four NBA championships with the Los Angeles Lakers, Earl Cureton, and acquired Robert Reid from the Houston Rockets. The Hornets received the eighth overall pick in the 1988 NBA draft, and selected shooting guard Rex Chapman from the University of Kentucky. Dick Harter was hired to be the team's first ever head coach.

The Hornets made their NBA regular season debut on November 4, 1988, in which the team lost to the Cleveland Cavaliers at home, 133–93 at the Charlotte Coliseum; Tripucka and Rambis both led the team with 16 points each. After losing their first two games of the season, the Hornets defeated the Los Angeles Clippers at the Charlotte Coliseum, 117–105 on November 8; it was the team's first ever win in franchise history. Tripucka scored 24 points along with 3 steals, while Chapman scored 18 points off the bench, and Rambis had a double-double of 17 points and 14 rebounds.

The Hornets struggled losing ten of their first twelve games of the regular season, and held an 8–19 record at the end of December. The team lost 10 of their 13 games in January, and later on held a 13–35 record at the All-Star break. The Hornets posted two nine-game losing streaks between February and March, and between March and April; the team lost 13 of their 16 games in March, and lost 20 of their 22 games between February 28 and April 10, 1989. In March, the team signed free agents Sidney Lowe and Greg Kite. The Hornets finished their inaugural season in last place in the Atlantic Division with a record of 20 wins and 62 losses.

Tripucka led the Hornets in scoring averaging 22.6 points per game, and finished tied in fourth place in Most Improved Player voting, while Chapman averaged 16.9 points per game, and was named to the NBA All-Rookie Second Team, and Reid provided the team with 14.7 points per game. In addition, Rambis provided with 11.1 points, 9.4 rebounds and 1.3 steals per game, while Curry contributed 11.9 points per game off the bench, but only played just 48 games due to a wrist injury, Holton provided with 8.3 points and 6.3 assists per game, Cureton averaged 6.5 points and 6.0 rebounds per game, Hoppen provided with 6.5 points and 5.0 rebounds per game, and Bogues contributed 5.4 points, 7.8 assists and 1.4 steals per game.

The Hornets led the NBA in home-game attendance, becoming the first expansion team to do so, with an attendance of 949,858 at the Charlotte Coliseum during the regular season; it was also an all-time NBA attendance record, which would be broken by one of the two next season's expansion teams, the Minnesota Timberwolves the following season. One notable highlight of the inaugural season occurred on December 23, 1988, in which the Hornets defeated All-Star guard, and former University of North Carolina star Michael Jordan, and the Chicago Bulls at the Charlotte Coliseum by a score of 103–101, in front of a sellout crowd of 23,388 in attendance. With the score tied at 101–101, Rambis made a game-winning layup from Reid's missed shot at the buzzer; Tripucka scored 30 points while Jordan scored 33 points along with 6 steals.

The team's new primary logo would remain in use until 2002, while the new uniforms would last until 1997, where they added side panels and additional pinstripes to their jerseys.