Charles Lee is the Charlotte Hornets’ new head coach. Was it the right choice?

The Charlotte Hornets did the safe thing Thursday when they hired Boston Celtics assistant Charles Lee to be their new head coach.

From the day that Steve Clifford stepped down and ended his second run as the Hornets’ head, Lee has been thought to be the front-runner. He’s got just about all the right qualifications: He had an exemplary career as an NBA assistant, helping to direct teams that won a championship in Milwaukee and may win another this year in Boston. He’s young (39), a former star college player at Bucknell and, perhaps most importantly, had a deep connection already with new Hornets co-owner Rick Schnall, dating back to their days with the Atlanta Hawks.

And that’s the way the Hornets went, eschewing more out-of-the-box choices like former Duke star JJ Redick or G League head coach Lindsey Harding. They instead went for one of the most traditional paths of hiring a new coach in both the NBA and the NFL: Find a hot young assistant coach who’s not yet been a head coach but who’s already in the league and grab him. The Carolina Panthers did exactly the same thing in January, hiring Tampa Bay offensive coordinator Dave Canales (who’s four years older than Lee, at 43).

This was a safe hire for the Hornets, to be sure.

Was it a correct one?

In a hot-take world, everyone wants a “yes” or “no” answer to that. The real answer is “maybe,” depending on if LaMelo Ball ever plays a full season again, and if Brandon Miller becomes the all-star he could be, and if Mark Williams solves his back issues and on and on and on.

But if I had to pick one today, I’d say yes, it was the right choice. For all the headlines a hire like Redick or Harding would grab, if I’m co-owners Schnall and Gabe Plotkin and I’ve invested so much into this franchise Michael Jordan never could turn around before selling it, I’d go with the guy I knew really well and had seen do a good coaching job firsthand already.

There’s so much uncertainty already around the Hornets. Redick — who might end up as the L.A. Lakers’ next head guy — could be Steve Kerr as a head coach, but he also could be Magic Johnson as a head coach. There’s just not a track record there.

Harding would have been interesting, and certainly she could have done the job as she’s the reigning G League Coach of the Year. But if the Hornets were going to hire a female coach, they should have broken the bank and hired Dawn Staley away from South Carolina — one of the best coaches working today, regardless of gender.

Staley, as I’ve written before, was my top choice. But if not her, Lee seems like a person who can get it done and certainly one who knows what a winning team looks like.

Cedric “Cornbread” Maxwell, the former Charlotte 49ers All-American, later became a star with the Boston Celtics and is now the team’s radio analyst. In that role, Maxwell has gotten a close look at Lee as an assistant in Boston.

Maxwell told me in a phone interview Thursday that Boston coach Joe Mazzulla will often assign specific Celtics players to assistant coaches for individual workouts, and that Lee’s work with veteran guard Jrue Holiday has been notable.

“Jrue is like his guy,” Maxwell said of Lee, “and I think Jrue has really improved on some of the things that Charles has worked with him on. But Charles is very quiet. He’s an unassuming type guy. Not boisterous. Not ‘I’m here.’ Not ‘Look what I’ve done.’ Just seems like a real good guy.”

Given that, Maxwell said he expected that Lee’s work with Miller and Ball to be especially hands-on in Charlotte. “He’s going to have two young guards,” Maxwell said. “I think because he worked well with Jrue Holiday and that would probably take him over to the guard play. Because that’s the backbone of what they do right now.”

Lee wasn’t available for interviews Thursday when the Hornets announced the news of his hiring, and the team said he wouldn’t be until the Celtics’ playoff run concluded. That could be more than a month from now. If the Celtics win the Eastern Conference, the NBA Finals begin June 6 and could end as late as June 23 if there’s a Game 7.

So Lee’s inaugural press conference won’t be for a while, and he’ll get a late start on the draft-day and free-agent part of the Charlotte offseason. But as long as Lee doesn’t pull a Kenny Atkinson here, none of that is a deal-breaker.

All we got directly from Lee on Thursday was one mundane quote in a statement by the Hornets, which read: “The opportunity to be the head coach of the Charlotte Hornets is a dream come true. I want to thank Rick Schnall, Gabe Plotkin and Jeff Peterson for the trust they are placing in me to lead this team. The Hornets have a talented young core of players and I’m excited about our future and what we can build here. There are few places as passionate about basketball as the Carolinas, and I look forward to coming to Charlotte and getting to work.”

With Lee and new Hornets basketball decision-maker Peterson, also in his 30s, the Hornets now have a young front-office nucleus to match the young team in front of them. And that youthful energy is going to be needed as Charlotte, which went 21-61 last season, tries to break the NBA’s longest playoff drought (they haven’t made the true postseason since 2016).

Lee is used to working into May and June every season, because he’s been involved in the NBA playoffs nine times in his 10 years as an NBA assistant.

The Hornets? They check out in mid-April every season and by this time of year, their last game seems more like a year ago than a month ago.

Lee has been hired to change that.

I think he’s got a decent chance to do it.