On November 4, 2004, Charlotte’s Bobcats made their NBA debut against Washington. Twenty-two years later, the work that preceded that first game offers Seattle a useful way to think about building a basketball team from scratch.
The most interesting part is how many different decisions were involved. An expansion selection produced one group of players. Trades changed that group and created other opportunities. The regular NBA Draft supplied another major piece. A new team’s first roster was a process, not a single list read aloud.
Seattle has not reached that stage. The NBA authorized expansion exploration in March, and no Seattle franchise award, playing date or expansion-draft rules have been announced. Our latest account of Adam Silver’s public comments explains the distinction between active discussions and a completed decision.
The historical rules shaped the choices
In Charlotte’s 2004 draft, existing teams could protect eight players, and the Bobcats could take at most one per team.
That structure makes a popular fan exercise more complicated than choosing a favorite reserve from every roster. Protection choices determine which players are available. Contract obligations help determine which available players are attractive. A name can be appealing in isolation and still be a difficult fit for the organization being assembled.
Charlotte also operated under special financial conditions. A contemporary Associated Press report, preserved by RealGM, described a first-season cap of roughly two-thirds of the league salary cap and a three-quarters cap in the second season. Those were Charlotte’s terms then. They should not be attached to a hypothetical Seattle roster today.
The practical lesson is to start with the actual rules whenever the league publishes them. Until that happens, any mock expansion roster is an illustration of assumptions, however entertaining the exercise may be.
A selection could lead somewhere else
The Hornets’ official historical record documents 19 expansion selections on June 22, 2004. The next day, Charlotte sent selected center Zaza Pachulia to Milwaukee for the 45th pick in the regular draft. It also moved Aleksandar Pavlovic to Cleveland for a future first-round pick.
That is a useful corrective to treating every expansion selection as a projected opening-night starter. A player could become part of the team or part of a transaction that changed the team’s longer-term options. Evaluating the roster required following the next move, too.
The same record shows how the expansion process intersected with the regular draft. Charlotte agreed to select Predrag Drobnjak from the Clippers while exchanging picks No. 4 and No. 33 for No. 2. It used the second selection on Emeka Okafor on June 24.
Okafor’s route matters: he came through the regular NBA Draft, not the expansion selection. The two mechanisms contributed to the same roster, but they were separate events with different purposes.
Better questions for Seattle
If Seattle is awarded a franchise, the informative questions will extend well beyond which familiar players might be left unprotected. What contracts would the new team inherit? How would its draft position be determined? Which transactions would be permitted? How much flexibility would the rules leave for later seasons?
Charlotte’s history does not answer those questions for Seattle. It demonstrates why they need answers before anyone presents a plausible-looking roster as an impending one.
An opening night is easy to imagine. The months of choices needed to reach it deserve just as much attention. Around this anniversary, Charlotte offers a concrete example of that work, while Seattle’s next decisive step remains an official league decision.