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Charlotte Hornets (Projected Record: 44-38)

The Hornets are just solid, man. Charlotte’s top eight players in projected minutes played is filled with guys who should be just about average or better, with plus-minus darlings Kemba Walker and Cody Zeller (yes, really) further buoying the primary rotation above merely average.

Dwight Howard projects to be worse than Zeller per possession, but Dwight is still a useful player (stop laughing) and adding him for basically nothing was a huge win for the Hornets’ offseason. Finding the balance between Howard and Zeller’s minutes will be a big key for Charlotte, as playing them together is inadvisable.

Even with all of those things going their way, the Hornets still lack a superstar impact player, which caps their upside a bit. Walker is the new most underrated PG in the league since everyone now understands how good Mike Conley is, but he’s not a supernova who can drag an average supporting cast to 50-plus wins. Or, at least, he’s not been that player to date.

Another reason to believe in the Hornets is they were a 42-win team by point differential last year, but they underachieved by six wins. At least some of that should regress towards the mean, if not all of it.