{"id":201831,"date":"2026-06-23T15:04:56","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T19:04:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=201831"},"modified":"2026-06-23T15:04:56","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T19:04:56","slug":"historic-giannis-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2026\/06\/23\/historic-giannis-trade\/","title":{"rendered":"Historic Giannis Trade Only Makes Life Harder For The Hornets"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Giannis Antetokounmpo<\/a> trade saga has officially concluded: he has been traded to the Miami Heat, according to Shams Charania<\/a>. The Charlotte Hornets were never truly in the mix in the Giannis trade sweepstakes, even though they have an abundance of assets to pull the trigger on a blockbuster trade<\/a> if they wanted to.<\/span><\/p>\n

That could still happen today, before or during the 2026 NBA Draft<\/a>. With Giannis landing with the Heat, numerous long-term effects will ripple through the Hornets’ future.<\/p>\n

Historic Giannis Trade Only Makes Life Harder For The Hornets<\/h2>\n

The Outcome Will Likely Change On The Protected 2027 First-Round Pick From Miami<\/h3>\n

The Hornets acquired a protected 2027 first-round pick in the original Terry Rozier<\/a> trade. While this pick was up for dispute after the gambling scandal that occurred afterward, Charlotte ended up keeping the protected first-round pick but relinquished a 2026 second-round pick to resolve the dispute.<\/p>\n

The 2027 first is lottery-protected, meaning if the Heat miss the playoffs and the pick falls in the lottery, they will keep it. However, that pick would convey to an unprotected first-round pick in 2028. Most Hornets fans were hoping this pick would be conveyed, as the probability of a higher lottery pick would increase in 2028 with no protections.<\/p>\n

The mathematics behind that changes with the blockbuster Giannis trade. Assuming Giannis is healthy, the Heat now have a two-time MVP and nine-time All-NBA player to pair with Bam Adebayo<\/a>. Head coach Erik Spoelstra<\/a> won’t have a problem building out the roster from the top down.<\/p>\n

\n

BREAKING: Giannis has been traded to the Heat per @ShamsCharania<\/a> \ud83d\udea8\ud83d\ude31<\/p>\n

OMG. \ud83e\udd2f\ud83e\udd2f\ud83e\udd2f pic.twitter.com\/v6L2eBipnw<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) June 23, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Before the trade, Miami was a middle-of-the-pack team that played in the Play-In Tournament the last four seasons. If that trend continued, there would’ve been a good chance the 2027 first-round pick would’ve become a lottery pick and been conveyed. Now, that likelihood has shifted since the Heat will be perceived as contenders.<\/p>\n

While the Hornets may end up with the less appealing outcome, they still received a first-round pick for a player who probably won’t play in the NBA again.<\/p>\n

The Hornets Have To Face A Giannis-Led Team Four Times Now<\/h3>\n

Another negative ripple effect that hurts Charlotte is that now Giannis is a member of the Southeast Division. This division consists of Charlotte, Miami, Orlando, Atlanta, and Washington.<\/p>\n

While NBA divisional wins carry little weight in the grand scheme of things, every team plays a total of 16 divisional games across an 82-game season. This would mean that Charlotte would have to play a Giannis-led team four times in the regular season.<\/p>\n

When he was on the Milwaukee Bucks, the Hornets faced Giannis 2-3 times per season, depending on NBA Cup matchups. In the last 10 games vs. Milwaukee when Giannis has started, Charlotte is 1-9. Needless to say, the Hornets don’t have a good track record against Giannis in the last few years.<\/p>\n

Once you factor in that the Hornets have won only two games against the Heat in the last three seasons across 12 intradivisional games, the outlook begins to look grim.<\/p>\n

<\/smartframe-embed><\/p>\n

New And Improved Hornets Team Gives Hope<\/h3>\n

Despite the detrimental effects of the Giannis trade, this Hornets team has made tremendous strides. With the addition of Kon Knueppel<\/a> and a healthy LaMelo Ball<\/a>, Charlotte had a 25-win difference from the 2024-25 season under second-year head coach Charles Lee<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Having the fourth-best point differential in the Eastern Conference (+4.8) despite not making the playoffs indicates the second-half surge happened too late. Assuming they build on last season through the 2026 NBA Draft<\/a> and avoid descending back down into a rebuild, they have a good shot at making some noise in the East.<\/p>\n

The Giannis trade isn’t ideal, but Charlotte is no stranger to adversity.<\/p>\n

Jim Dedmon. Imagn Images via Reuters Connect<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Giannis Antetokounmpo trade saga has officially concluded: he has been traded to the Miami Heat, according to Shams Charania. The Charlotte Hornets were never truly in the mix in the Giannis trade sweepstakes, even though they have an abundance of assets to pull the trigger on a blockbuster trade if they wanted to. That […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5878,"featured_media":201883,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_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":[4,1608,7,16,15,62,3,17,18],"tags":[1010,49160,306,49839,823,1382,427],"class_list":["post-201831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hawks","category-basketball","category-hornets","category-heat","category-bucks","category-nba","category-news","category-magic","category-wizards","tag-bam-adebayo","tag-charles-lee","tag-giannis-antetokounmpo","tag-kon-knueppel","tag-lamelo-ball","tag-nba-trade","tag-terry-rozier"],"modified_by":"Daniel Benjamin, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201831","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\/5878"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201831"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":201885,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201831\/revisions\/201885"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}