Stirtz would be a better fit on the Hornets than the Raptors (Deep Analysis)
I say this because I recently saw an article that said Bennett Stirtz is scheduled to workout out with the Charlotte Hornets. This was a surprise to me, because why would a young team like the Hornets be interested in a senior guard instead of younger two-way type talent. Especially when the broader media is so sure of itself that Raptors are the perfect landing spot for Stirtz. Granted, Toronto has also scheduled a meeting with Stirtz, but I still believe Stirtz is better in the Hornets system after the research I conducted.
All of that being said, this isn't a hate analysis to show why I am biased against Stirtz (because I am a Raptors fan), but it's to show why Stirtz will thrive more on the Hornets than the Raptors (hence why Hornets are showing interest in him as well).
I'll compare his two most noticeable traits to both teams: PnR Playmaking/Scoring and Athleticism.
Stirtz's Playmaking
Stirtz has come to be known as a PnR "maestro" who seems to live and breath PnRs. He had a high volume of 1,926 possessions in the pick-and-roll across his career. He's scoring 1.12 points per possession in pick-and-rolls to the point, it's what he's become most comfortable with.
And he does all this while maintaining a relatively low turnover rate of 1.8 in this NCAA season resulting in him having quite an excellent AST/TO ratio of 2.4. He's patient with the ball, and accurately gets the passes where they need to be.
That being said now lets look at how well this type of playmaking would fit on the Hornets vs Raptors.
Relation to the teams
These stats are directly from NBA's official website based on the 2025-26 regular season and in terms of points scored
- Hornets placed 2nd in points scored by PnR ball handler, Raptors placed 28th
- Hornets placed 2nd in points scored by PnR roll man, Raptors placed 18th
- Hornets placed 6th in points scored by handoffs, Raptors placed 15th
- Hornets placed 10th in points scored by spot up shooting, Raptors placed 20th
These were the 4 most relevant play-types that I found to be relevant to how Stirtz playmakes. As the PnR maestro that he is, he'd be doing much better in the Hornets system which has already developed a near top of the league PnR strategy on top of additional passing strategies, whereas the Raptors are far from even doing anything related to PnR. Hornet offense essentially runs through Lamelo with how PnR heavy this team seems to play.
Speaking of Lamelo, in the past few years, he's seen some serious injury concerns. In the past 3 years, he's barely played 50 games, hell in 2 of those years he played a combined 58 games. In the past 3 years, the Hornets has had a record of 20-85 without Lamelo.
With the injury risks that Lamelo poses, despite being so important for the team, and the fact that Hornets heavily rely on PnR for offense, they will need a backup PG who can essentially run the same plays as Lamelo when Lamelo can't play. Wouldn't you know it, it's almost like Stirtz was built to do exactly that.
As we've seen throughout this regular season, the Hornets are a young team revving to become competitive, barring future injury. They rely on Lamelo to stay healthy or else their entire team will collapse. They need a central playmaker like Lamelo which is what Stirtz brings to the table to keep them effective when Lamelo faces injury concerns.
Yeah Stirtz isn't exactly elite, but being the jack of all trades that he is AND being surrounded by Hornet's competent shooters, all he has to do is get the ball in the right hands and trust that his teammates will do the rest. It's not like Stirtz is going to be a starter, at most he'll be a rotational player for Lamelo.
As a Raptors fan, it's a fact at this point that the Raptors can't shoot. We don't have consistent shooters and we struggle at the 3 point line. Putting Stirtz in this mess is only going to be a net-negative for him who can't do the one thing he is known for which is playmaking. And as you saw with the team stats I provided earlier, Raptors don't even utilize PnR the way that Stirtz mastered it.
Raptors are better off getting two way talents like Morez/Quaintance to improve both sides of the court or taking a risk on high volume PGs like Ebuka/Anderson to improve shooting and spacing.
Stirtz's Athleticism
Stirtz is old. Old relative to the average age of this draft which is around 20. He'll be 23 by the start of the regular season and if he were more athletic I could definitely see him going somewhere closer to where Yaxel is currently at.
He also struggles with creating offense outside of ball screens, which is his bread and butter. Which only makes it worse for him when the NBA has become much more switch-heavy instead of relying on iso-defense. That's the problem of living and dieing by PnR.
If he was on the Raptors he'll just end up becoming another player who can't shoot because of his inability to self-create versus if he were to go to the Hornets, the bare minimum will be that he can get the ball to someone who can shoot (which he can't do on a non-shooting Raptor's team).
Something else to consider here is that his low athleticism would heavily contrast against the Raptors, who were leaders in fast-breaks in the 2025-26 regular season. Coincidentally, Hornets are 26th on that exact list too, so Stirtz wouldn't be expected to run up and down the court on the Hornets as often as he would, on the Raptors.
Another big concern about his athleticism is his ability to play defense. He will get hunted on defense and would be a detriment against nimble and more athletic players.
Which is not something the Raptors front office would like. The fact that the Raptors have some of the worst shooting in the league and yet have top 5 defensive rating in the NBA, goes to show that they like to lean more towards players that have stronger defense, even if their shooting is mediocre.
In similar fashion, Hornets are 11th in defensive rating, despite Lamelo being essentially a defensive liability. This might look bad but this is actually really good when you consider that Hornets are top 5 in offensive rating, while the Raptors were 15th.
Hornet's poorer defense is cancelled out by the fact that they're stronger offensively, meaning that despite Stirtz being a potential net negative on defense, if he's able to push their offense effectively, he'll end up being a net positive overall. It's worth the risk because overall, Hornets are the better rounded team, in which Stirtz would thrive more in, than the Raptors. His defensive mistakes will be forgiven as long as he can keep playmaking on the court as a rotational player.
That's the other thing about Stirtz as well, he's seen as a rotational player, so his impact would be much more visible on a team already well built for shooting like the Hornets instead of the Raptors, since the Raptors can't shoot well enough to show how effective Stirtz is on the court.
The Raptors main concern right now is finding a center player who can act as a two-way big because that's how this team works. Raptors run a positionless heavy defense scheme, so we need a player like Morez/Quaintance more than Stirtz solely because they would provide more value, like how Stirtz would provide more on a developed team he can playmake for. Granted if Raptors decide to take a risk on Ebuka/Anderson and they turn out to be stars, we'd also solve our shooting and spacing problem as well.
Conclusion
I am no god nor an insider on either teams so I can't predict the future. What I can say however, is that based on the these two team's recent data, the more preferable team that Stirtz would fit well with is the Hornets. Given that the Hornets have an 18th pick, Stirtz is a justifiable pick at that slot because Raptors have been getting mocked to pick him with their 19th pick. People want to talk about Stirtz's pick and roll and how it's so elite yet they don't mock him to the one team that seems to be very effective at running PnR and being ranked 5th in offensive rating simultaneously.
Let me know what you guys think, because I didn't expect the Hornets to even consider Stirtz for a practice session.