Jeff Peterson’s job rebuilding the Hornets won’t be easy. Here’s his early to-do list

Not much more evidence was needed, not with the Charlotte Hornets already holding a laundry list of examples in a lost season that can’t end soon enough.

Just in case, though, the Hornets’ 111-99 loss to Milwaukee at Spectrum Center on Thursday night showed once again how far the organization has to go to reach the level of the Bucks or any other team with championship pedigree. That distance is akin to walking the entire 668 miles of Interstate 85 stretching from Petersburg, Va. to Montgomery, Al. — while wearing a 100-pound backpack in full hiking gear.

The Hornets, however, may have finally located the right person to pull them out of their decade-long malaise and get the franchise headed in the right direction.

From all indications, Jeff Peterson is the perfect man for the job. The 35-year-old Brooklyn Nets assistant GM is zeroing in an agreement with the Hornets to become their new head of basketball operations, league sources confirmed to The Observer on Thursday, and the move was celebrated by those who know Peterson and watched his meteoric rise up the front office ranks.

“Awesome guy,” a high-ranking league executive who worked previously with Peterson told The Observer. “Incredibly intelligent and super genuine. He will do a great job.”

As another person who’s spent plenty of time around Peterson said: “Great, great get for the Hornets.”

Once the ink on his contract is dry and he arrives for his first day on the job, Peterson has several tasks awaiting him on the to-do list. That includes potentially hiring an assistant GM, with one league source suggesting Matt Tellem could join Peterson in Charlotte. Tellem is the Nets’ director of strategic planning and assistant GM of the G League Long Island Nets. He’s also considered an expert in navigating the NBA’s salary cap.

But that’s not all Peterson will have on his plate. Here are the three main tasks the Hornets’ new chief decision maker must tackle first when he’s officially hired and entrusted to construct a roster talented enough to halt the NBA’s longest playoff drought.

Steve Clifford’s future

Anyone who watches the Hornets understand the situation coach Steve Clifford has been in for the better part of his two seasons at the helm. He was at a disadvantage from the moment he got hired, when he came on after the draft and had to play catch up evaluating the roster and everything else.

When you’ve had your expected main rotation together for all of seven combined minutes, it’s hard to truly evaluate accurately because of all the injuries. But in professional sports that sometimes doesn’t matter. It’s not about fairness because this is a bottom-line business, and there’s no guarantee that knowing Peterson from their year in Brooklyn together is going to help Clifford hang around for another season or beyond.

As The Observer first reported on the day Clifford was officially hired, he inked a two-year deal worth $4 million per season with a team option. So, if the Hornets don’t intend on bringing him back for another season, they can simply not pick up the team option, allowing both sides to separate amicably.

Either way, there will be an answer by April 30. That’s when the Hornets have to inform Clifford, who’s 42-99 in his second stint with the franchise, if they will extend the contract’s expiration date to June 30, 2025.

Keeping LaMelo Ball and Mark Williams healthy

Perhaps nothing is more important than getting the health of two of the team’s core pieces in order, especially with their respective skill sets being so difficult to replace.

LaMelo Ball and Mark Williams were in street clothes again, unable to suit up against the Bucks. They’ve missed a combined 87 games and counting this season, and there is little clarity on a specific recovery timetable for either.

Last week, The Observer reported Ball was progressing well in his rehabilitation enough to rejoin the team practice. But just how close he is to possibly returning to game action is anyone’s guess.

“It’s hard to tell,” Clifford said. “Look, he’s doing the same stuff now that he was doing two weeks ago. I don’t know that stuff. He does what they allow him to do. There’s a lot of factors in that, obviously. Like today, he did a lot of shootaround. He’s been doing that for a while.

“He wants to be back. Again, he doesn’t feel healthy enough and people aren’t comfortable enough that he should play. I don’t really know how to answer that. He does all of shootaround and things like that. He does his work. I know he wants to get back. There’s just a lot of factors on that one.”

Besides tackling why Ball can’t keep his ankles from ailing and how to ensure Williams’ back problems don’t flare up again, Peterson will also have to asses the reasoning behind the Hornets’ seemingly team-wide injury woes, figuring out if it’s more of a systematic issue that needs to be addressed with the implementation of a new staff and overall approach to medicine and performance.

Something must be done because there’s no way the Hornets can keep losing so many games missed due to injury. They aren’t deep enough to sustain the non-stop bumps and bruises that have troubled the starting lineup for the better part of the last two-plus seasons.

Miles Bridges’ long-term status

Among the most difficult choices Peterson, along with team ownership as a whole, has to make: whether to re-sign one of the team’s homegrown pieces.

What happens with Bridges is far from a given, though.

Bridges has repeatedly said to The Observer and in general that his preference is to stay with the organization that drafted him and brought him back despite him pleading no contest to felony domestic violence. Another case against him that cropped up publicly in October was recently dismissed.

The Hornets technically hold the cards because they can hand Bridges a more lucrative deal than any other team. Thanks to owning his Bird’s Rights — which gives teams the ability to exceed their salary cap to re-sign their own free agents — Charlotte can offer Bridges an extra year, which amounts to extra dollars.

Still, Bridges has the upper hand since he’s an unrestricted free agent and doesn’t have to provide the Hornets with an opportunity to match whatever he gets on the open market. He can simply walk away, which could be an option. Multiple league sources, including one with direct knowledge of the situation, have suggested the team in Bridges’ native state could be interested in signing him to a hefty contract.

With the Detroit Pistons possibly in play, paired with Bridges having a career season despite missing the entire 2022-23 campaign, it’s going to be an interesting offseason for the 25-year-old.

The Hornets have to figure out if they think a long-term partnership is in the best interest of both parties, and that answer will have a huge impact on how the franchise shapes itself under Peterson and ownership moving forward.