The new Charlotte Hornets are determined to do it their way, no matter how odd it seems

Tidjane who?

This was my immediate reaction and quite likely yours to the Charlotte Hornets picking French forward Tidjane Salaün on Wednesday night, the most notable of a recent flurry of moves the local NBA team has made.

With the options of trading back or choosing a well-known college player like Connecticut’s Donovan Clingan, Kentucky’s Rob Dillingham or Tennessee’s Dalton Knecht, the Hornets instead took the third-best draft prospect from France and the youngest player in the draft (he’s still just 18).

I still don’t love the idea. Salaün strikes me as more of a major project than a major prospect. But I will say this — the Hornets’ new folks at the top, who are very young themselves, are determined to do it their way, no matter how odd it may seem.

New GM Jeff Peterson (35) and new head coach Charles Lee (39) have swung big with Salaün. They could have taken a better-known player. They could have traded back and hedged their bets with some more assets in a, “Just in case this doesn’t work out” sort of situation.

Instead, Peterson has made it sound post-selection that Salaün might have been his very favorite player in the entire draft, and somebody they have quietly zeroed in on for months.

Like many people have over the centuries, Peterson went to Europe and fell in love in the springtime. But in this case Peterson fell in love with an idea — the idea that the 6-9, 218-pound Salaün was a diamond amid the baguettes. C’est magnifique!

And that’s not all Peterson and Lee — who only had his opening press conference as the Hornets coach Tuesday — have done in a busy week. They also drafted Colorado guard KJ Simpson in the second round, waived veteran guard Seth Curry (son of Hornets legend Dell), said goodbye to JT Thor and made it very clear they want forward Miles Bridges — an unrestricted free agent who led the team in total points last season — back on the roster.

“I’ve made it very clear to Miles that we want him to remain as a Hornet,” Peterson said.

Whether Bridges does come back or not — he will have options, and the Hornets already broke the bank once on LaMelo Ball’s max contract — will likely be determined very soon.

But whether Bridges returns or not, Salaün still needs to pan out for a Hornets team in the midst of the NBA’s longest active playoff drought.

Charlotte hasn’t made the real postseason since 2016, but it will have a chance in 2024-25 if LaMelo Ball and Mark Williams get over their serious injury problems and Brandon Miller continues to flash his massive star potential.

Salaün will need work on his jumper and his body, but his grasp of English is already pretty good and will get better. He also has a sense of playfulness that will translate well in the locker room. Salaün joked this past week that he and LaMelo Ball have “the same haircut” and that his best attribute on the floor is “my smile.”

Still, he’s only 18. It’s a bit of a reach to think of Salaün as a heavy rotation sort of player for the Hornets this season — not if they’re any good, anyway. Drafting Salaün is the sort of thing you do if you’re playing the long game — if you think you’re going to be in Charlotte for many years and have the sort of time you will need to develop a talent like that.

It’s a high-risk play, in other words, because little in the NBA lasts for very long.

Take the Charlotte Hornets’ 2021-22 draft class for instance — one that really needed to be good if it was going to help the Hornets out of this awful stretch.

Thor was the last vestige of that class. James Bouknight, Kai Jones and Scottie Lewis — they’re all gone already. That’s exactly what you don’t want.

With the Hornets, so much is new.

Rick Schnall and Gabe Plotkin, the new co-owners, bought the team from Michael Jordan less than a year ago. Peterson got here in March. Lee got here last week. They are ping-ponging around the city, into different gyms and different office buildings, because Spectrum Center is in the midst of a renovation.

I keep thinking back to what Peterson said in March at his own opening press conference. He’s a veteran, after all, compared to Lee and Salaun.

“Rick and Gabe have communicated very clearly that we want to turn this thing into the premier franchise in the NBA,” Peterson said. “And that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

Premier franchise? The Boston Celtics and L.A. Lakers might have something to say about that. But drafting Salaün is the sort of high-risk, high-reward pick you do make when you’re shooting for the stars, searching for the next Giannis and willing to take a huge cut. Even if you might strike out.