{"id":129579,"date":"2025-03-19T11:42:53","date_gmt":"2025-03-19T15:42:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=129579"},"modified":"2025-03-19T11:42:53","modified_gmt":"2025-03-19T15:42:53","slug":"charlotte-hornets-reexplore-major-trade-mark-williams-offseason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/03\/19\/charlotte-hornets-reexplore-major-trade-mark-williams-offseason\/","title":{"rendered":"Charlotte Hornets to Re-Explore Major Trade This Offseason?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last month, the Charlotte Hornets<\/a> were busy at the trade deadline. They acquired Jusuf Nurkic<\/a> from the Phoenix Suns<\/a> in exchange for Cody Martin<\/a>. Additionally, less than a month before that, they sent Nick Richards<\/a> to the Suns for Josh Okogie<\/a>. However, the biggest trade they made was one that did not ultimately happen. The Hornets had a trade in place to send starting center Mark Williams<\/a> to the Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> for Dalton Knecht<\/a> and Cam Reddish<\/a>. However, due to problems with Williams’ physical, the trade fell through and each player returned to their original team.<\/p>\n

Since the trade deadline passed, the two teams could not work out a new deal, putting them in a bit of a predicament. However, according to NBA insider Marc Stein, some around the league expect the Hornets to re-explore Williams’ trade market.<\/p>\n

“Mark Williams is obviously back with the Hornets after the Lakers rescinded their February trade for the Charlotte big man, but some rival executives expect the Williams trade market to be re-explored this summer. The Hornets have tried to shut down similar speculation about star guard LaMelo Ball<\/a>, but the reality remains that Williams, Ball and Brandon Miller<\/a> have managed to appear in the same game just 18 times over the past two seasons,” Stein wrote<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So far this season, Williams is having a career year. Through 35 games, he is averaging 15.4 points, 10 rebounds, and 2.5 assists while shooting 59.3% from the field.<\/p>\n

Charlotte Hornets to Re-Explore Mark Williams Trade This Offseason?<\/h2>\n

Mark Williams Is Not the Only Hornets’ Trade Candidate<\/h3>\n

As it stands, Williams is not the only Hornet who may be on his way out. Earlier this month, HoopsHype’s Michael Scotto reported that the Hornets may trade<\/a> star guard LaMelo Ball.<\/p>\n

\u201cI touched on this with some of the other guys, and some executives around the league are looking at it too. If you were willing to part with Mark Williams\u2014who\u2019s 23 and pretty good, though he has some injury concerns\u2014the next logical thing would be to also look at LaMelo Ball. He\u2019s on a max contract, and they\u2019re not winning, obviously, for the foreseeable future. For LaMelo, he wants to win. This is now going to be his fifth season. How much longer does he see himself there? That\u2019s what I\u2019ve been told. And I\u2019ll say this, Matt\u2014at the end of the day, I also think not being an All-Star and not winning affected him. He had the numbers on paper, but Charlotte\u2019s record hurt his chances. From what I\u2019ve been told, he wants to win competitively.\u201d<\/p>\n

To this point, Ball has spent his entire five-year career in Charlotte. While a trade is far from a guarantee, it is interesting regardless that it seems like a legitimate possibility.<\/p>\n

Additionally, Scotto also named Miles Bridges<\/a> as a potential trade candidate for Charlotte. Bridges signed a three-year extension last July.<\/p>\n

\u201cLastly, forward Miles Bridges will also be a name to watch on the trade market this offseason. When Bridges originally signed his three-year, $75 million contract, it was structured to descend and be used as a trade chip, league sources told HoopsHype. Bridges will be owed $25 million for the 2025-26 season and $22.83 million in the 2026-27 season.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Last Word<\/h3>\n

The offseason is still a few months away. However, it already seems that the Hornets are a team to monitor. For now, these are just rumors. At this point, though, the Hornets are 17-51 and own the second-worst record in the East. A change may be in line in Charlotte. It seems unlikely all three of these players will find themselves traded in the offseason. However, a lot of crazier things have happened.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Scott Wachter-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last month, the Charlotte Hornets were busy at the trade deadline. They acquired Jusuf Nurkic from the Phoenix Suns in exchange for Cody Martin. Additionally, less than a month before that, they sent Nick Richards to the Suns for Josh Okogie. However, the biggest trade they made was one that did not ultimately happen. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4631,"featured_media":129580,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,7,2,62,3,4721],"tags":[4044],"class_list":["post-129579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-hornets","category-featured","category-nba","category-news","category-trade-rumors","tag-mark-williams"],"modified_by":"Elie Deglaoui","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4631"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129579"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":129585,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129579\/revisions\/129585"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}