The Charlotte Hornets already have an owner from Maine, an assistant coach from Maine and a scout from Maine. And now they have as good a chance as any team to draft a star player from Maine.
The 14 worst teams in the National Basketball Association are gearing up for the league’s draft lottery on May 12, where one lucky franchise will win the first pick and the chance to draft Cooper Flagg.
Flagg, a Newport native, is the consensus number one pick. If next Monday night goes as everyone expects it to, he will be the first Mainer ever to be taken first overall in the draft.
And interestingly, one of the teams with the best odds to win that first pick has strong ties to the state.
As Maine buzzes with anticipation about Flagg’s potential NBA destination, the Charlotte Hornets are already replete with connections to the Pine Tree State.
Charlotte co-owner Gabe Plotkin was born and raised in Portland, where he attended Deering High School. Plotkin and business partner Rick Schnall co-led a purchase of the majority stake in the team from NBA legend Michael Jordan in August of 2023. Jordan remained a minority owner of the team in the move.
A few months after that sale, Plotkin spoke with Greg Levinsky for a story in the Bangor Daily News. And Plotkin was asked then about the idea of getting the number one pick in this year’s draft and having a chance to bring Flagg to Charlotte.
“If we’re in a position — I hope we’re not because that means we haven’t gotten better at that point — but if we get lucky, win the lottery, something happens, it’d be an awesome thing,” Plotkin said at the time. “We’ll see how that plays out.”
The past two seasons may not have played out as Plotkin hoped, with Charlotte finishing among the dregs of the league in both campaigns. But the chance to draft Flagg next week could be a silver lining.
As one of the bottom three teams in the league this season, the Hornets share a lottery-best 14 percent chance of winning the number one pick along with the Utah Jazz and Washington Wizards.
And if Flagg were to find his way to Charlotte, a fellow Mainer could be waiting for him on the bench. Hornets assistant coach Josh Longstaff, hired last summer as part of the staff under head coach Charles Lee, is also from Portland. Another Charlotte assistant, Blaine Mueller, is from Wisconsin but previously coached the Maine Celtics in the NBA G League.
Former Hornets coach Steve Clifford is also a Mainer. Clifford’s second stint as the Charlotte head coach ended last April when he announced he would step down and move to an advisory role with the team.
The Maine connections don’t stop there. Like Plotkin, Hornets scout Nik Caner-Medley also went to Deering High School. Caner-Medley followed up an impressive high school career at the Portland school with arguably the most prominent run in men’s college basketball for any Mainer — until Flagg came along, that is.
Caner-Medley played for four years at the University of Maryland, where he averaged more than 12 points per game and helped lead the Terrapins to an Atlantic Coast Championship in 2004. He joined the Hornets organization last summer as a scout, and had an extensive career playing professional basketball overseas.
These Maine ties might not be the only factors that could help Flagg feel somewhat at home if drafted by the North Carolina team. Charlotte is just a little over two hours from Durham, where Flagg just wrapped up a phenomenal season at Duke University.
Flagg told NJ.com in April that he’d “feel completely blessed and honored to play for any team.” And any team would surely feel lucky to add him to the roster.
Among the 14 teams with a chance of winning the NBA lottery on Monday, Charlotte’s Maine connections add an interesting angle to the Cooper Flagg sweepstakes.
