A shakeup is coming in the Charlotte Hornets’ front office. Search for new GM is under way

Changes are coming to the Charlotte Hornets’ front office.

Mitch Kupchak, who’s served as the team’s president of basketball operations and general manager since 2018, is moving into a consultant role within the organization, the team officially announced on Monday.. A search for a new general manager will begin immediately and Kupchak will remain in his current post until a successor is found.

“As Mitch nears the end of his contract, we agreed that now was the right time to begin the search in order to put the organization in the best position for the upcoming offseason,” Hornets co-chairmen Rick Schnall and Gabe Plotkin said in a statement released by the team. “We’re excited to begin the hiring process for our new head of basketball operations as we continue to shape this franchise and work towards building a team for long-term sustainable success.

“We will take a deliberate approach to the hiring process and will focus on making the best decision for the organization’s long-term future.”

Hired in 2018 to replace Rich Cho, Kupchak helped restore things financially initially with the Hornets cap sheet in shambles due to the hefty contracts of Nic Batum, Cody Zeller and Bismack Biyombo. But he’ll likely be remembered more for signing Gordon Hayward to a four-year, $120 million contract in 2020 under his watch, a decision that was widely criticized among league executives at the time given Hayward’s injury prone tendencies.

Hayward — traded to Oklahoma City for Tre Mann, Dāvis Bertāns, Vasilije Micić and a pair of second-round picks — only played in 168 of 288 games during his Hornets’ tenure, which amounts to 58.3%.

Kupchak was one of the key architects of the Los Angeles Lakers’ championship teams with Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal, but he never could elevate the Hornets into a postseason team and they’re not going to get there this year, either.

Under Kupchak’s guidance, the Hornets haven’t made the actual playoff field, only advancing to the play-in tournament in 2021 and 2022 and getting ousted in the opening round each year. They boast the NBA’s longest postseason drought, having failed to reach the playoffs since 2016. It’s the fourth-longest in America’s top four professional sports leagues.

And while the Hornets have hit on some key lottery picks in LaMelo Ball and Brandon Miller, they also misfired on some of their draftees. The most notable being the entire 2021 class rendered a bust with James Bouknight, Kai Jones and Scottie Lewis already off the team. Bouknight, seldomly used this season, was waived on Thursday to clear roster space, and Jones got released before training camp in September.

Kupchak hired James Borrego as head coach a few weeks after he came on board in 2018 and fired Borrego in 2022 a week after the Hornets’ blowout play-in tournament loss to Atlanta. He led the coaching search to replace Borrego, getting Golden State Kenny Atkinson to agree to terms before Atkinson abruptly backed out, causing the Hornets to scramble. The team pivoted toward a familiar face in Steve Clifford, bringing him on board for a second stint, and the Hornets have posted a 38-96 record during the past season-plus leading into Monday night’s game against Indiana.

Kupchak, 69, inked a multiyear contract extension in 2022 and part of the understanding when he agreed to the deal was for him to eventually shift into more of an advisory position once the 2023-24 season ended, a league source said. As mentioned in the statement from Schnall and Plotkin, Kupchak’s eventual departure from the role as the main decision maker on a daily basis opens the door for the Hornets to get a jump start on the process of finding a replacement.

“After signing my extension two years ago, the plan has always been for me to move to an advisory role after this season when my contract ends in June,” Kupchak in a statement. “Now feels like the appropriate time to begin the search for the next leader of our basketball operations. I want to thank Michael Jordan for hiring me and bringing me to Charlotte.

“I’d like to thank Rick and Gabe for their support since becoming majority owners, and I appreciate the relationship that we have developed. I really like the core of our team, including our additions at the trade deadline, and I’m excited to watch their continued growth and development. The Hornets are in good hands with Rick and Gabe, and I look forward to helping any way I can. I believe our future is very bright.”

Among the people who could be candidates to keep an eye on, league sources said, are: New Orleans Pelicans GM and former Duke standout Trajan Langdon, Philadelphia 76ers GM and Duke product Elton Brand, Brooklyn Nets assistant GM Jeff Peterson, Milwaukee Bucks assistant GM Milt Newton and New York Knicks assistant GM Frank Zanin.