Championship-winning assistant emerges as 'strong' candidate for Hornets' HC job

The Charlotte Hornets may already have their play called in the huddle.

Charlotte is looking for a new head coach amid the news that emerged on Wednesday that Steve Clifford is stepping down from his position at the end of the season. Clifford will coach the team’s final seven regular-season games but will then transition into a front-office role for the team, thus ending his second stint as Hornets head coach.

Chris Mannix of SI reported in the aftermath of the news that there has been “a lot of chatter” in coaching circles about one particular “strong” candidate for the Hornets job — current Boston Celtics assistant Charles Lee.

ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski had also mentioned Lee atop an initial list of candidates for Charlotte's head-coaching position.

The 39-year-old Lee, a former pro basketball player overseas, already has roughly a decade’s worth of assistant coaching experience at the NBA level. He was an assistant for the Atlanta Hawks from 2014-2018, moved to the Milwaukee Bucks as an assistant coach from 2018-23 and then joined the Celtics as their lead assistant in 2023. Lee won a championship with the Bucks in 2021 and now has a chance to win another one with the league-leading Celtics this season.

It is worth noting that Lee was already considered for a different NBA head-coaching opening just last year. Now opportunity may come knocking for Lee again with a rebuilding Hornets team.