Old North Banter
Fansided

Charlotte Hornets: Trade Chips?

By John Woodcock

May 1, 2016; Miami, FL, USA; Charlotte Hornets associate coach Patrick Ewing (left) watches as Hornets forward Spencer Hawes (right) warms up before game seven of the first round of the NBA Playoffs against the Miami Heat at American Airlines Arena. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports
May 1, 2016; Miami, FL, USA; Charlotte Hornets associate coach Patrick Ewing (left) watches as Hornets forward Spencer Hawes (right) warms up before game seven of the first round of the NBA Playoffs against the Miami Heat at American Airlines Arena. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports /
facebooktwitterreddit

The Charlotte Hornets may have limited options if they try to fix their interior defense with a trade.

The Charlotte Hornets have really thrown me for a loop with this whole ‘talk to wings at the Combine’ thing. I was so certain that they would try to target defense and the draft was the only cost effective way to do it. It could be a big smokescreen, but let’s assume they intend to draft one of the guys who they interviewed. How then could the team improve their interior defense?

One avenue that we have not explored is trades. The Hornets have two contracts that could be tradeable. The definition of tradeable is that the Hornets don’t absolutely need either piece.

Those contracts are Jeremy Lamb and Spencer Hawes. Hawes is the fifth post currently and that position would not change if the Hornets brought in a big or managed to keep Jefferson.

More from Charlotte Hornets

Lamb was impressive early in the season and then ran into injury trouble and just could not get things going in the later part of the year.

Hawes’ current trade number is $6.1 million. Lamb’s current number is $3.9 million. Both of those numbers will change when the League’s fiscal year starts, but the NBA Trade Machine on ESPN still reflects the current contract numbers. So we will operate on the idea that this is a predraft trade.

As you can see, the Hornets could net a player of around $10 million in current value. That is fine, but the Hornets would also need to find a willing partner. In this case it has to be a team not currently in the playoffs that is willing to offload a defensive piece as part of a rebuild.

One player I considered targeting was Nerlens Noel of the 76ers. The problem there is that Noel is still on his rookie deal and the 76ers don’t have any other contract to make the deal work besides Carl Landry. Landry’s upcoming expiring deal might seem like a good thing to have, but he would not have a clear role on the team.

I don’t really believe that the 76ers would give up Noel for two role players without getting some kind of talent in return (draft picks). These scenarios aren’t necessarily supposed to make sense, but others make more sense than this.

Option two that I looked at was acquiring Tyson Chandler from the Suns. I hated a lot of this deal. A combination of Hawes, Lamb, and cap space could bring in Chandler’s massive $13 million deal but you’d get an aging overpriced center who would no longer in the care of the miracle workers known as the Phoenix Suns medical staff.

More from Old North Banter

Option three was getting Kenneth Faried ($11 million) from the Nuggets, but the return would not make much sense for Denver. Hawes would not see much action if they put him at center. I was not exactly high on getting Kosta Koufos from the Kings in a trade at the other end of the usefulness spectrum.

In the East, there are two big centers who could move but their contracts are too big for the Hornets. That would be Brook Lopez of the Nets and Greg Monroe of the Bucks. Both would also have to beg the question: we did want better interior defense right?

Another player the Hornets could get if the other team was amenable is Nikola Pekovic of the Timberwolves. He has seen his minutes decline to injury and the arrival of Karl-Anthony Towns, so the Wolves might be okay with moving on from him especially if they are getting more shooting. However Pekovic is thirty and last year was essentially a lost season for him.

Next: Looking at Malcolm Brogdon

This should give people some idea of what the trade environment might look like if the Hornets choose to make a move in that direction. This assumes of course that the Hornets are interested in trading at all. Still plenty of off season left.

Home/Charlotte Hornets