The Charlotte Hornets may be about to hit the reset button, which could include trading away a franchise cornerstone. ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported Friday that the Hornets have put Kemba Walker on the trading block.
Wojnarowski cites a long list of bad contracts for Charlotte as the reason they’d put one of the franchise’s best players on the market. The Hornets are a franchise that was hoping for a playoff run this year, but at 18-25 and sitting in 11th in the East, that doesn’t seem likely right now.
And while Walker has thrived in relative obscurity in Charlotte, the results for the franchise is that they still haven’t made the playoffs since 2016. Wojnarowski reported Friday that the team hopes to get “good young player” or a first-round pick for Walker, one that could help them land a younger star and reboot things in Charlotte once more.
According to the ESPN report, the Hornets are willing to include Walker on a bigger deal that could get him to a contender, and that a bit part of Walker’s availability stems from their inability to move other contracts off the team.
The Hornets had already made available Nicolas Batum (four years, $100 million), Dwight Howard (two years, $47 million), Marvin Williams (three years, $42 million) and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist (three years, $39 million), league sources said, but those players and their contracts are largely unattractive in the marketplace.
Walker, a 2017 Eastern Conference All-Star selection, is averaging 21.7 points on 42 percent shooting and 5.8 assists per game. He was Charlotte’s first-round pick in the 2011 NBA draft.
Likely landing spots for Walker are not clear just yet, but the rumor mill should kick into overdrive now that it’s official Walker could be on the move. At 27, he’s got a long career ahead of him, and can be an immediate impact player on a contending team. It’s just a matter of who is willing to give Charlotte what they want.
