Imagine knowing there are five guys on the team collectively pocketing somewhere in the neighborhood of $85 million over the coming months, including one who’s on tap to direct deposit a cool $25 million into his personal funds.

You’re their best player, the one who virtually carried the franchise on a diminutive 6-foot-1 frame these past few seasons while detractors clowned the production of the team’s four highest-paid players. Surely, you figured the Hornets would at the very least open up the checkbook and break you off with a hefty piece of Christmas change, offering you the kind of money you were looking for — which isn’t the $221 million supermax, mind you — as you hit the open free agent market.

Instead, you feel as if you are being lowballed by what your team initially put on the negotiating table, causing you to seek better deals elsewhere.

Boston, Los Angeles, New York, possibly Dallas?

That’s apparently how things are shaping up in the chase for Kemba Walker’s services. The Athletic’s Shams Charania reported Thursday that there’s a sizeable gap in the negotiations between Walker’s representatives and the Hornets to the point where he’s closing in having on a potential agreement in place soon with the Celtics when free agency officially begins Sunday. Walker and his camp are on their own timeline, but he should be one of the first few dominoes to fall and will probably have something in place by next weekend so whatever team he signs with can begin shaping the roster and slotting other free agents in around him.

Make no mistake, though. The Hornets aren’t completely out of the running. Remember, they can give him a fifth year on his new contract, which is something no other team can do. This could all be a ploy to make general manager Mitch Kupchak & Co. up the ante, forcing the Hornets to give in and open the vault for Walker.

But as it stands, it’s not good optics. At all. You just can’t let Walker leave and take his talents elsewhere for nothing. If that was the thinking of the Hornets’ decision-makers, they should’ve shipped him out of town for a good package of players and picks sometime before the trade deadline in February.

It’s a bad look for many fans already annoyed by the Hornets’ inability to pull themselves from a yearly uninspiring quagmire. They were emotionally detached when George Shinn moved the city’s original franchise to New Orleans in 2002, taking the team name along with it until the Pelicans were born in 2013, paving the path for the Hornets re-brand in 2014.

The NBA made an unprecedented decision to grant Charlotte an expansion team in 2004 — two years after its inaugural owner left for the bayou. The franchise diehards probably figured things with the team would be copacetic by now.

Things are not copacetic.

And the natives are getting peeved — to say the least.

If you’re the Hornets, the last thing you can do is lose the faith and attention of the paying customers. They’re in jeopardy of doing just that. They could find themselves playing in front of sparse crowds at Spectrum Center with crowd noise mirroring a library. Or boasting all the excitement of a mausoleum.

To be clear: Giving Walker the supermax once he became eligible after earning Designated Veteran status (thanks to his third-team All-NBA honors) was never going to be on the table. And it shouldn’t have been. As good as Walker is, giving him nearly a quarter-billion over five years would choke their salary cap and have them in a predicament akin to the Washington Wizards plight with John Wall’s bloated contract.

Truthfully, there are very few players in the NBA worth those kinds of dollars. That’s why it just wasn’t happening. Last month, long before the initial pre-free agency frenzy of these past couple of days, a league source told me there was “no way” owner Michael Jordan was going to vault into the luxury tax to re-sign Walker. Another league source doubled down on that this week.

In fairness, the Hornets didn’t know Walker was going to hit the supermax eligibility jackpot that’s backed them into the corner. However, they were fully aware of Walker’s impending free agent status and were cognizant of the potential obstacles and financial pitfalls accompanying the task of signing him to a new pact.

Now, it’s not just that Charlotte is on the verge of potentially losing the franchise’s all-time leading scorer. Walker could be bolting for the Celtics green(er) pastures without the Hornets receiving any kind of compensation to aid in rebuilding the team.

Although they’re in the minority, some fans believe Walker leaving town is a good thing. Those fans want the Hornets to commence with a complete roster overhaul. Breaking it all the way down to the nubs sounds good and all due to their unsightly cap situation, but let’s examine three things that make the roster retooling a tricky proposition for the Hornets.

1. Being bad doesn’t equal a great pick

First, as we witnessed in May when the NBA Draft Lottery results were revealed in Chicago, a bad record no longer equates to a better draft pick. It’s become a crapshoot — a chance game like Russian roulette. The New York Knicks did all they could to post the league’s worst record this past season, essentially tanking for the right to land the top spot in the lottery and pluck Zion Williamson off the board. Instead, Williamson is headed to New Orleans as the No. 1 pick. It conjures up visions of the horror movie Charlotte went through when the then-New Orleans Hornets defied the odds in 2012, beating Charlotte for the No. 1 spot to select Anthony Davis.

2. First-round draft history … not so great

Their first-round draft pick history isn’t something that should be boasted on anyone’s resume. Sure, the jury is still out on their last three — Malik Monk (2017), Miles Bridges (2018), PJ Washington (2019) — and it’s irresponsible to make any kind of final judgments on them. You can mildly argue Monk hasn’t panned out, especially given he was taken two slots ahead of the Utah Jazz’s blossoming stud Donovan Mitchell, who’s elevated his game to a point where he’s one of the best young players in the league. But Monk is only entering his third season and maybe this is the year he puts it all together consistently. Maybe.

The Hornets certainly need him to. Doing so would aid in erasing this unbelievably torturous eight-year stretch they’ve been on when it comes to selecting not just the right player in the draft, but also the one who actually is, well, a legit NBA player with a true shot at a productive career. Just in case you’ve forgotten — or have selective amnesia on purpose — here’s the Hornets’ unsightly list of first-rounders since striking gold with Walker :

2012: Michael Kidd-Gilchrist (No. 2 overall)

2013: Cody Zeller (No. 4)

2014: Noah Vonleh (No. 9)

2014: Shabazz Napier (No. 22)

2015: Frank Kaminsky (No. 9)

2016: Malachi Richardson (No. 22)

2017: Monk (No. 11)

2018: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (No. 11; traded to L.A. Clippers for Bridges)

2019: Washington (No. 12)

What’s there to say? It speaks for itself. And by the way, Kaminsky is the latest roster casualty who didn’t pan out.

3. Will cap space matter?

Clearing cap space is a good idea but realistically which big-name free agent is coming to Charlotte if Walker walks? After players around the league see how the Hornets didn’t want to give Walker enough coin to keep him in a place he repeatedly called his top priority, the Hornets really won’t be at the top of anyone’s list. That means the Hornets would be forced to pay more than they should just to have second-tier players sign on the dotted line.

Isn’t that what has them in salary-cap hell now, living on an undesirable avenue stemming from bad financially-crippling decisions? Overpay for talent and they’re right back on the treadmill of mediocrity, that never-ending path to nowhere that’s become the bane of everyone’s annual frustrations.

If the Hornets aren’t careful, all this could be enough to drive the loyalists away in droves, sending them into a mindset where they stop supporting a team that can’t build a sustainable winning product. Those fans won’t be marching down Trade Street with pitchforks and sticks ablaze in disgust.

They just won’t come.

Those who do venture to the arena will be there to mostly root for the visitors instead, sitting on their hands while the Hornets likely fade off in another season without any national television appearances while devoid of a homegrown star.

And that’s a shame.

(Top photo of Mitch Kupchak and Kemba Walker: Jeremy Brevard / USA Today)