Shortly before last season’s trade deadline, the Charlotte Hornets agreed to a trade to send big man Mark Williams to the Los Angeles Lakers in exchange for then-rookie Dalton Knecht, forward Cam Reddish, a first-round pick and a pick swap.
However, the trade got nixed after the Lakers failed Williams on his physical, and because the trade deadline had already passed, the deal was unable to be completed.
It seems that the Hornets learned from the Williams fiasco. According to ESPN’s Brian Windhorst, the team traded for guard Coby White with some time to spare before the deadline this season partly to be sure to avoid something like the Williams situation.
“Here’s what happened with Coby White,” Windhorst said. “So, they traded for Coby White, and from what I am told, they did the deal on Tuesday, and one of the reasons they did the deal on Tuesday was because after last year, when they had the Mark Williams deal with the Lakers undone after the deadline — if you remember, the deadline was already over — they couldn’t amend it.
“… This year, they purposely did the deal to allow for time to get the physical done. They do the physical, and they discover that Coby White has a calf injury. And he had a calf injury earlier this year, but to the other leg. This was a new calf injury that — I don’t know. I don’t think he’s given an interview yet. Maybe his calf was a little sore. But they identified that he’s got a calf injury.
“And they call the Bulls, and they go, ‘Listen, man, he has this issue.’ And so the Bulls agree to amend the deal, and they give back a second-round pick.”
After the Williams trade fell through, the big man played out the remainder of the 2024-25 campaign in Charlotte before he was dealt to the Phoenix Suns in the offseason. The Hornets traded him for the No. 29 overall pick in last year’s draft (which turned out to be wing Liam McNeeley) as well as a first-round pick in the 2029 NBA Draft and veteran Vasilije Micic.
Even though the Hornets certainly would’ve loved to have had the original Williams deal go through, they have to be happy with what they got in return from the Suns for their injury-prone center. Moreover, the fact that Charlotte agreed to a deal with the Lakers so late that it couldn’t be rescinded also taught the team a valuable lesson: to be proactive on the trade market.
Hopefully, the acquisition of White will up the lethality of a Hornets team that’s been one of the hottest in the NBA in recent weeks. Unfortunately, he isn’t going to make his team debut until after the All-Star Game.
Charlotte’s current winning streak stands at nine games, and it can extend that streak to double digits with a victory over the Detroit Pistons on Monday. But winning will be no easy task, as the Pistons own the best record in the Eastern Conference by far at 38-13.
