Changing Stripes: The History Of Charlotte Hornets Jerseys
The history of Charlotte Hornets jerseys shows how love, tradition, and substance outlast the cosmetics of sports. Charlotte tried to herald its own way into a different era with a…
The history of Charlotte Hornets jerseys shows how love, tradition, and substance outlast the cosmetics of sports. Charlotte tried to herald its own way into a different era with a new look in the 2010s. As of the 2025-26 season, the franchise is learning that it can succeed sporting the jerseys of an expansion team.
Founded in 1988, moved to New Orleans in 2002, and revived with new bosses using the original brand, the Charlotte Hornets have made modest but memorable changes to their jersey design over the years.
Below, we'll compare the Hornets' vintage expansion-era jerseys to the look of Kon Knueppel's present-day squad.
The Expansion Era (1988-1997)
Charlotte debuted with classic NBA/ABA-style basketball jerseys in 1988. The team's home-and-away colors, white and teal, were paired with a printed wordmark in a strong font and vertical purple-shaded stripes decorating the cagers' torsos. Few adjustments were made to the Hornets' uniforms between 1988 and 1997, although in 1990, Charlotte replaced an "H" logo with a buzzing hornet on the players' waists.
Charlotte struggled to develop a contending team in the Hornets' first decade. The Hornets only produced two winning regular-season records between 1988-89 and 1995-96. Charlotte made the playoffs in four of seven seasons from 1992-93 to 1997-98, but the Hornets went 9-16 in those postseason contests, winning only two preliminary series and never advancing past the Eastern Conference's third round.
More Stripes, More Wins for the Hornets (1997-2002)
They say that a leopard can't change its spots, but a Hornet can certainly change its stripes. Charlotte's jazzy Y2K-era uniforms, which replaced the previously staid stripes with multicolored striping from the shoulders to the waist, ushered in a period of success and national acclaim for the franchise.
Charlotte finished second in the Pacific Division in two of three consecutive seasons from 1999-2002, battling Milwaukee in a memorable seven-game conference semifinal series in 2001.
There were only two downbeat headlines for the Charlotte Hornets in 2002, but they were both major bummers. One was that the Hornets still couldn't reach the NBA conference finals. The other story making the rounds in Carolina was worse: the suggestion that the Hornets might be getting moved out of town.
The Charlotte Bobcats (2004-2014)
The heartbreaking truth unfolded in 2002 when the Charlotte Hornets were moved to New Orleans by club owner George Shinn. It's rare for NBA champions to move to a new town, but Shinn was dissatisfied with Charlotte's attendance figures and hoped to spend more freely in the Big Easy, where ticket revenue was higher. That didn't happen: Even the New Orleans Pelicans were considered the dregs of the league two decades later.
Michael Jordan's ownership group came to Charlotte's rescue in 2004 when the Charlotte Bobcats were founded. The Bobcats did not achieve the Hornets' success in the early 2000s, posting only two winning seasons while branded as Carolina's cats on the hardwood.
The simple yet modern designs of Bobcats uniforms were a hit with fans anyway. Following a change to Charlotte's vintage NBA color scheme in 2009, supporters could sense that a rebranding was in order.
Return of the Hornets (2014-2020)
The Charlotte Hornets' brand revival came with jerseys influenced by the Bobcats' uniforms, removing the frontal stripes while dressing the team in plain white, black, or teal from the neck to the shorts. A kaleidoscope of multicolored stripes was now embossed on the side of each player's jersey.
The wordmarks featured large, bold "Hornets" on the front and back. The choice of space-age "Rollerball"-style numbers stood out as a modern touch.
Charlotte's new hoops organization also unveiled a new Hornets logo in 2014.
The Hornets' second debut went much like the first, with the club only mustering one playoff bid in its second year after the revival. Miami bested Charlotte 4-3 in a first-round playoff series in 2016, followed by the Hornets posting a losing streak in the regular season that did not end until the decade that followed.
Back to the Roots (2020-2026)
Charlotte brought back the stripes on its uniforms as of 2020, making the additional adjustment of replacing "Hornets" with "Charlotte" on the front of each cager's jersey. The four vertical stripes down each player's torso are a near spitting image of the vertical stripes on the Hornets' original shirts.
Many fans felt that the Hornets changed their cosmetics again because the club couldn't impress by winning games. For a while, they were right. But the 2020s are a time of positive developments in Hornets hoops.
Charlotte guard LaMelo Ball won the NBA's Rookie of the Year prize in 2021. The following year, Charlotte completed its first winning season since 2015-16. While the franchise fell into the cellar again under head coach Steve Clifford from 2022 to 2024, the current head coach, Charles Lee, has led the squad to turn a corner.
The superstar rookie Knueppel is making even more of a splash than Ball in his first season. Charlotte embarked on a pair of long win streaks in early 2026, looking poised to contend in the NBA playoffs sooner than later.
