Hornets don’t pick up Tidjane Salaün’s $10.4 million option, putting the No. 6 pick on track for free agency

The Charlotte Hornets have not picked up the $10.4 million fourth-year option on Tidjane Salaün, the No. 6 pick in the 2024 draft. Charlotte picked up the third-year options on Kon Knueppel and Liam McNeeley on Sunday and left Salaün out of the announcement, and salary-cap reporter Keith Smith confirmed Sunday night that the team did not exercise his option for 2027-28.

Notable today for NBA transactions:

The Charlotte Hornets did not exercise the 2027-28 rookie scale team option for Tidjane Salaun.

The Oklahoma City thunder did not exercise the 2027-28 rookie scale team option for Nikola Topic.

Both CHA & OKC picked up other team options.

— Keith Smith (@KeithSmithNBA) November 2, 2026

The league moved the deadline for these decisions from Saturday, Oct. 31, to Monday, Nov. 2, because the usual date fell on a weekend. Teams almost always handle all of their options at once, so a player left out of a team’s batch is rarely picked up later. Unless Charlotte reverses course before the end of Monday, Salaün is headed for unrestricted free agency in the summer of 2027.

What it means for Salaün

• He stays a Hornet for the rest of this season. Declining the option does not change his 2026-27 salary, which was already guaranteed.
• Next summer he becomes an unrestricted free agent instead of playing a fourth season on his rookie deal.
• Charlotte, or any team that trades for him, will not be able to offer him a starting salary above the $10.4 million option amount. Other teams in free agency will not face that limit.
• He can no longer sign a rookie-scale extension, because he will not reach the final year of his rookie contract.

Why Charlotte walked away

Salaün was the first lottery pick made by head of basketball operations Jeff Peterson, and the 6-foot-10 French forward was drafted as a long-term project. Three seasons in, the numbers have not justified a $10.4 million salary for 2027-28.

• 2024-25: 60 games, 10 starts, 5.9 points and 4.7 rebounds in 20.7 minutes, shooting 33.0% from the field and 28.3% from three
• 2025-26: 37 games, 6.0 points and 4.0 rebounds in 15.5 minutes, with much better shooting at 50.3% overall and 43.4% from three
• 2026-27: six games off the bench, 5.3 points and 3.2 rebounds in 13.5 minutes
• Career: 103 games, 5.9 points and 4.3 rebounds, 39.2% from the field and 33.0% from three

The second season showed real progress as a shooter, but his minutes kept shrinking. Before the season, his roster spot was in question as the Hornets weighed keeping veteran wing Pat Connaughton, and Charlotte has since built its young core around Knueppel, who finished second in Rookie of the Year voting last season.

Passing on the option also keeps $10.4 million off Charlotte’s 2027-28 books. Knueppel’s option is worth about $11 million and McNeeley’s about $3 million, so the Hornets kept two wings for roughly the price of Salaün’s one year.

Six options turned down this fall

Salaün joins a short list of players whose options were not picked up this fall. Oklahoma City did the same thing with Nikola Topić on Sunday, after earlier decisions on Cody Williams, AJ Johnson, Pacome Dadiet and Denver’s DaRon Holmes II. Every other team that has announced its choices picked up its options.

Four decisions were still open going into Monday’s deadline:

• Milwaukee: Kel’el Ware and Kasparas Jakučionis
• Utah: Ace Bailey and Isaiah Collier

We are following every team’s choices in our running tracker of option decisions.