Charlotte Hornets guard Terry Rozier brings the ball down court against the San Antonio Spurs through the second half of an NBA basketball game on Friday, Jan. 19, 2024, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)
CHARLOTTE, North Carolina — The Charlotte Hornets have already made one major move sending starting guard Terry Rozier to the Miami Heat and there’s an excellent likelihood they aren’t done wheeling and dealing before the Feb. 8 NBA trade deadline.
The Hornets (10-31) are taking a look at an eighth straight season of failing to succeed in the postseason, the longest current drought within the NBA. And Hornets president of basketball operations and general manager Mitch Kupchak is well aware that it’s time to show an eye fixed toward the long run and start collecting draft assets.
“I can’t discount the incontrovertible fact that we’re a team that’s attempting to construct something that may sustain something going forward, and … we are going to search for opportunities,” Kupchak said of the potential for more trades. “And if there’s something on the market we are going to look to do it. It’s so simple as that.”
So Rozier often is the first domino to fall.
The Hornets received a protected 2027 first-round pick from the Heat and 37-year-old Kyle Lowry — who they’re hoping to maneuver before the deadline — in exchange for Rozier, who was averaging a career-best 23.2 points per game on 46% shooting.
Miles Bridges and the often-injured Gordon Hayward, veterans on expiring contracts who’ll grow to be unrestricted free agents after the season, are logical candidates to be moved. While the Hornets own their Bird rights, it is sensible the team can be open to moving each as they give the impression of being so as to add more draft picks.
When asked specifically about Bridges and Hayward, Kupchak said “when your record is like our record, no person is untradable.”
Well, possibly not everyone.
LaMelo Ball, who signed a five-year, $260 million max contract this past offseason, and Brandon Miller, the No. 2 overall pick in last yr’s draft, aren’t going anywhere. Kupchak views them as franchise constructing blocks.
He also said there could also be a handful of players the team might wish to keep around, although he wouldn’t specify which of them. The team signed P.J. Washington to a four-year, $46.5 million contract extension this past offseason.
Kupchak stopped in need of saying the Rozier trade signaling a “rebuild,” a word general managers are inclined to avoid due to the negative connotations involved.
“A rebuild is once you start with a bunch of veterans and a team that just isn’t going anywhere and you select to scrap all of it and begin from scratch. But clearly we’re further down the road from that,” Kupchak said. “So I don’t know what the word can be, but I’d not use the word rebuild.”
Still, it’s fairly clear the Hornets roster is not going to look the identical come mid-February and so they wish to construct for the long run.
Rozier had two years left on his current contract, while Lowry is on an expiring deal giving the Hornets added salary cap room this summer.
“That cash can be freed up and it’s all the time good to be flexible financially,” Kupchak said. “It should help us in the following couple of weeks to plan for this summer and beyond. … And the pick itself has incredible potential for upside. But an asset that invaluable may also grow to be something you may put right into a trade and make a deal. So yes, the financial a part of it was an element of it, but getting the pick was a very powerful part.”
As for Lowry, who turns 38 in March, there’s an excellent likelihood he may never play a minute for the Hornets.
Kupchak suggested the team will take a wait-and-see approach with Lowry before the trade deadline, a sign they may do the whole lot they’ll to maneuver him before offering a buyout.
“It could be that we wait to see what happens out of respect to him and what he’s completed on this league,” Kupchak said. “Possibly we wait to see and have the trade deadline pass reasonably than have him relocate and begin something which will or may not happen. So I feel (not playing him) might be what we are going to do, but I don’t know needless to say. But that seems to make probably the most sense.”
