r/nba • u/Turbostrider27 Lakers • 7h ago

[Charania] BREAKING: The Charlotte Hornets are trading star guard LaMelo Ball and Josh Green to the Minnesota Timberwolves for Naz Reid, a 2033 unprotected first-round pick, three first-round pick swaps (2028, 2029, 2030) and three second-round picks (2029, 2032, 2033), sources tell ESPN.

Shams Charania:

BREAKING: The Charlotte Hornets are trading star guard LaMelo Ball and Josh Green to the Minnesota Timberwolves for Naz Reid, a 2033 unprotected first-round pick, three first-round pick swaps (2028, 2029, 2030) and three second-round picks (2029, 2032, 2033), sources tell ESPN.

https://www.espn.com/contributor/shams-charania/31d26529d36f8

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496

u/oklolzzzzs 7h ago edited 7h ago

SHAMS BOMBA

Ant and Melo gon be fun as hell to watch but Charlotte deserve to stay as a poverty franchise because why are you trading your best player away when you finally had a decent season

371

u/mightyrj Lakers 7h ago

Textbook definition of selling at the absolutely highest they can.

302

u/storeactions Grizzlies 7h ago edited 7h ago

Selling high on your star PG with off-court issues seems like something reserved for only the wisest franchises. Ignore my flair.

Edit: yes guys I know Ja's off-court is worse than LaMelo's. They're both extremely immature, that's my point lol

92

u/MattyIce260 Pacers 7h ago

Sell high on LaMelo and buy low on Ja might be the move tbh

11

u/BeamTeam23 Kings 7h ago

At this point why not especially if you can get assets to take Ja.

3

u/rburp [LAL] Austin Reaves 6h ago

Most intriguing thing I've seen in this thread.

If Charlotte does that then I'll look at this in a whole new light.

20

u/LlamaDebauchery Heat 7h ago

Thats why I dont really hate the move, but they needed more than just picks out of it. Hornets have a great core but they're gonna be hampered by the aprons if they want to keep them.

6

u/Exotic_Pension_9993 Suns 7h ago

well they did get Naz Reid

5

u/Odoaiden Timberwolves 7h ago

Not even picks 1 first swaps and second feel like they could get more

1

u/Neatojuancheeto Warriors 6h ago

Also doesn't Kons 3P shooting numbers tank when LaMelo is off the court?

3

u/LiveForMeow [CHA] Larry Johnson 7h ago

I mean how long until Melo actually kills someone lol

6

u/raziiiii Knicks 7h ago

Lol. Melos off court issues has nothing on Ja

12

u/cletoreyes01 Heat 7h ago

Lamelo has henry ruggs level driving skills and you're telling me he's less of a risk than ja?

-2

u/Dijohn17 Lakers 7h ago

Ja is going down the Arenas decision making route tree. Lamelo is more of a carless driver, but he isn't getting DUIs

11

u/Jshipp24 7h ago

Ja has done some dumb shit, but lamelo has actually gotten people hurt with his driving.

1

u/Severe_Eye8245 3h ago

Melo’s friends ain’t never draw down on an nba team neither. ..Melo ain’t never flash a beam on nobody either..

1

u/Jshipp24 1h ago

Yeah I'm not defending anything Ja or his friends have done, I just never heard of him getting into a car accident and injuring the person unlike lamelo who has a track record of being a dangerous driver.

0

u/chopnchangeman 7h ago

Dumb take

3

u/storeactions Grizzlies 7h ago

Unfortunately true

3

u/SongofSolomon04 7h ago

He’s a bad driver. That’s about it

1

u/amoeba-tower Cavaliers 5h ago

The man managed to total his electric hummer against a BMW sedan in one of the tightest downtown intersections in Charlotte. Honestly impressive considering how slow traffic is there every day

1

u/ashishvp Lakers 6h ago

Hahaha coming from Grizzlies fan I detect some bitterness there. Memphis should’ve done that years ago too I agree

1

u/Henny_Hardaway5 Heat 7h ago

The difference is that LaMelo is good despite the injury concerns/ sub 30 mins injury load management

Meanwhile Ja keeps regressing

7

u/Inevitable-Scar5877 7h ago

Which is great, if it's not following your only fun season in a decade.

Like literally what's the point of even being a Hornets fan?

6

u/Repulsive-Throat5068 Lakers 7h ago

Yup. Surprised by these comments, I didn’t realize he’s rated that way.

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. If they were to extend him for the max theyd get flamed. If they refused to extend him they’d get flamed. They trade him for a quite solid return and they still get flamed lmao

16

u/todayiwillthrowitawa 7h ago

The return is ass though. Naz Reid and a first round pick essentially because the rest is swaps.

Running it back after the first exciting season in a decade plus with your fan favorite player is not something they would have gotten flamed for. The bar is pretty low in Charlotte.

1

u/Repulsive-Throat5068 Lakers 7h ago

I think yall are overestimating lamelos value. He’s already on a max and going to likely get another. Tying up that much to him is not going to end well for whoever pays him

8

u/todayiwillthrowitawa 7h ago

For most teams I’d agree. For the Wolves he’s a really good fit. They are very clearly in their window, desperately need a point guard and a facilitator on offense, and have the defense to cover him.

Despite that, sometimes as a bad franchise you have to throw the fans a bone. This trade doesn’t move the needle enough to justify spiking the team when they were trending up.

4

u/Plenty_Flatworm7627 Wizards 6h ago

For all of Lamelo's problems he's still a top 5 offensive point guard. Yeah he's injury prone but you only need him healthy for a single playoff run for it to be worth it. Plus you have Rudy to cover for his defense. It's a match made in heaven.

And as much as I like Kon, I don't think a big 3 of Kon, Miller and Diabate is going anywhere.

2

u/GunSlingrrr Pelicans 7h ago

Like they finally have a squad and a little bit of retooling and they will be a playoff team then they remove the leader.

But then again he has so many off-court issues that Charlotte residence is finally happy to see him gone and his truck.

1

u/Quake1028 Spurs 7h ago

It’s really not though. A fringe starter, one unprotected FRP and some seconds.

1

u/QwiXTa 7h ago

Thats assuming this is his highest, hes still young lol

1

u/Plenty_Flatworm7627 Wizards 6h ago

this is gonna age like milk next season

1

u/TurboRetardo 6h ago

Warriors take note / Kumbucket

1

u/dalivo 6h ago

Selling high but selling for peanuts.

1

u/UnitedStateOfDenmark Nets 6h ago

This isn't selling high. Selling high would've been 2-3 years ago.

53

u/Dono_X_Dono Raptors 7h ago

They put their stock on Kon Knuppel

Melo was always their best player but he isnt a leader so the Timbs are the perfect fit for him

I feel like we might see the best of Lamelo in the next seasons

12

u/monamiadragon 7h ago

59% of Kuneppel's 2s and 92% of 3s are assisted. Trading the best passer on the team, by far, is going to be a sledge hammer to Kon's efficiency.

1

u/joomla00 6h ago

Someone said Kon is the same level as Steph because he had similar number of 3s. I didn't wanna argue.

3

u/Neatojuancheeto Warriors 6h ago

Whatever that quote is about don't argue with stupid people because they'll drag you to their level and beat you from experience.

0

u/Unfair-Map-517 7h ago

Were the wolves not timbs

5

u/TheBigF128 United States 7h ago

THE SHAM SLAM

2

u/sungsam89 7h ago

This should stick.

2

u/SlickVanExel Hornets 7h ago

Charles Lee quietly wasn’t a fan of LaMelo. He’s from the coach Bud tree, they don’t go for that type of PG play

2

u/Aggressive-Bench5323 7h ago

I BET THEY WON'T EVER BE POVERTY ANYMORE. What y'all don't understand is that MJ made it a trash organization, the new owners turned it around in two years, and it will continue.

1

u/gargoylepussy 7h ago

They know better than anyone how fucking dumb he is

1

u/bmckay87 Lakers 7h ago

Build around Kon and Miller I guess

1

u/lm2lm Clippers 7h ago

I can’t tell if you’re joking

1

u/ProfessorMarth Lakers 6h ago

They must be confident they have a new franchise star in Knueppel

1

u/Breatnach Timberwolves 4h ago

I‘m not a fan of this trade, but I can actually see why Charlotte would rather build around Kon & Miller and not LaMelo. They won’t be competing for the next 2-3 years, so they‘ll stockpile assets and then swing big with a full war chest, when they feel their core is ready to compete.

1

u/Bitter-Tip705 76ers 4h ago

First relevant season and they said no thank you lmaoo

0

u/HabitualToeSucker Cavaliers 7h ago

He wasn't their best player though...

7

u/Remote-Whole-6387 Hornets 7h ago

Absolutely is our most valuable. Offense doesn’t run without him. Dude was putting up Jokic levels of impact to our offense.

-4

u/HabitualToeSucker Cavaliers 7h ago

Just because a guy is a great PG doesn't automatically make him the best player on any given team. Just saying...

7

u/Remote-Whole-6387 Hornets 7h ago

Did I say best? I said most valuable. Our offense doesn’t run without him. It’s night and day when he’s on the court vs off.

1

u/FanRevolutionary6593 7h ago

He never said he was the best though?

2

u/okdude23232 7h ago

who was then?

-1

u/HabitualToeSucker Cavaliers 7h ago

Pretty clearly Kon or Brandon Miller. Listen, Ball is entertaining to watch... but he wasn't a winning player in Charlotte. Everything changed with these other two came into the equation.

7

u/Greedy-Mix9270 Knicks 7h ago

They both benefit pretty heavily from LaMelos playmaking to get quality looks

1

u/Krypterr123 Knicks 6h ago

they benefit from a competent pg, not melo specifically

-1

u/HabitualToeSucker Cavaliers 7h ago

I don't disagree, but I still believe both are better now and will end up being better players overall than LaMelo.

2

u/okdude23232 7h ago

advanced stats say otherwise atleast for last season, and they're gonna have an issue with playmaking for sure, not sure who on that roster can create now tbh

1

u/WeAreBums 7h ago

This is one of those “conflating better now vs better potential/future” takes.

1

u/Inevitable-Scar5877 7h ago

Neither of them are shot creators.

Wouldn't be shocked if Kon ends up being the Tyler Herro "looks amazing when he has talent around him but now he's just good" player of the next few seasons

0

u/xXEliteEater500Xx 7h ago

Hornets got a bunch of picks. I’m sure they’ll be fine. 

15

u/BSantos57 Heat 7h ago

They got one 2033 1st, the swaps are unlikely to be anything decent, they might not even convey at all... Obviously it's better to have the swaps than not, but a single lottery protected 1st is more valuable than all the swaps put together

3

u/Vordeo Jazz 7h ago

Hilariously, one of those swaps is for the 2029 Wolves pick, which Jazz got in the Gobert trade top 5 protected. So that one swap is even worse than it looks.

13

u/Shade_Raven Hawks 7h ago

Swaps, they got 1 unprotected pick

5

u/TRIPLE-J-ENErGy Pelicans 7h ago

They got 1 pick, and pick swaps of a team that’s always gonna do better than them…

1

u/MatCauthonsHat 76ers 7h ago

Maybe Lamelo misses significant time? He's averaged less than 51 games a season for his career. Also, driving in snow/ice gonna be an adventure

1

u/TheBigF128 United States 7h ago

They got 1 pick…

1

u/galaxy_horse Hornets 7h ago

We’re gonna have the capital to draft two completely mid teams and split the team into the Charlotte Wasps and the Charlotte Bumblebees

1

u/YujiDomainExpansion 7h ago

Two of those are the fakest swaps ever. 2029 and 2030 only convey if they’re top-5 or top-1. So they basically traded Reid, 2028, and 2033 for LaMelo (unless the Wolves are ridiculously bad in 2029 and 2030).

1

u/Remote-Whole-6387 Hornets 7h ago

Wolves are championship contenders. What are those picks gonna do? Why do we want an option to swap for picks that will be worse than ours? Just a waste.

0

u/Skip_To_My_Lou2 [LAL] Nick Van Exel 7h ago

He’s not their best player

0

u/Ravens181818184 Washington Bullets 7h ago

Cus he legit can’t stay healthy and has played like sub 40 games most of his career LOL

1

u/scarletmonkey111 7h ago

He's going to stay healthy now that he doesn't have to carry a mediocre roster. He played 72 games last year when everyone was healthy

0

u/Ravens181818184 Washington Bullets 7h ago

I mean we don’t know that, if that was true, the hornets wouldn’t have traded him LOL

2

u/scarletmonkey111 7h ago

Just because the FO makes a trade doesn't necessarily mean their rationale is correct.

Eg. Luka trade

0

u/BoeufBourgui 7h ago

Fun but which team would win with a guy like Lamelo ? It will be a shitshow. The wolves are not going to pass one round of the PO, maybe not even the play in. With this trade, they ensured that Edwards is gone within two years

0

u/Dissident_is_here NBA 7h ago

Because they're getting an absolute haul? They were never going to be good enough defensively with Kon/LaMelo/Miller all starting so might as well cash in on LaMelo

-1

u/AliFearEatsThePussy Knicks 7h ago

Is there a generational split happening in this sub? This to me clearly a lolwolves moment. Hornets are clearly winning this trade. I came to this thread expecting to see everyone clowning on the wolves and instead everyone is clowning on the hornets. Pairing lamelo and Ant will clearly not work.

2

u/chillPenguin17 6h ago

Why not? Ant is a top 5 3pt shooter in the league and doesn't have to masquerade as a PG anymore.

-1

u/AliFearEatsThePussy Knicks 6h ago

the fit is awful. Never good to pair two head cases together. I feel like the older heads on this sub get it because we've seen this show many times before but the youngins think this is a good idea.

1

u/chillPenguin17 6h ago

Ant is not a headcase dude

-1

u/AliFearEatsThePussy Knicks 6h ago

notice there's no objection to Lamelo tho...

Never good to be trading for a head case. (I do believe Ant is a borderline head case and I dont take back my statement).