We suggest one trade the LA Clippers could make with the Charlotte Hornets.
Today, we look for the LA Clippers to make a trade with the Charlotte Hornets. The Hornets’ find their eye on the future with their season coming to an end as they will not be attending the Orlando NBA “bubble.” Charlotte closes their season in tenth place in the Eastern Conference with a final record of 23-42.
The Hornets are a young team with no clear future star to build around. They hope that second-year player Miles Bridges can become that but so far the six-foot-six forward from Michigan State has mostly shown flashes of athletic talent and dunking ability but doesn’t seem to have the superstar level of talent just yet.
Charlotte is another interesting and difficult trade partner for the Clippers. Their veterans (Nicolas Batum, Terry Rozier, Bismack Biyombo, Cody Zeller) don’t really offer the Clippers any improvements over current players. To make the issue worse, none of them are on team-friendly contracts. The Hornets would most likely love to move away from some of the players on multi-year deals but we don’t think the Clippers are the team to help them ease that burden.
The Hornets’ array of young players don’t exactly help the Clippers much in the here-and-now, but perhaps there is a player with potential they could pluck in hopes of developing into something for their own future. Second-year point guard Devonte’ Graham is having a breakout season, averaging 18.5 points, 7.5 assists, and 3.4 rebounds in 35.1 minutes-per-game. But a player like that with a contract of $1.4 million per season is just the type of player Charlotte needs to desperately hold on to.
With both those options leading to dead ends, we once again look for a hypothetical trade just for the fun of it.
Why we suggest this trade for the LA Clippers:
Cody Martin and Caleb Martin are six-foot-five inch, rookie, forward, twin brothers out of Nevada. Neither of the pair has put up any eye-opening numbers in their first season in the league. In fact, combined the brothers have only played in four games so far this season. But, like we said there doesn’t seem to be much on the Hornets roster that can help the Clippers, so we went for straight novelty. Twins!
Would the Wizards do it?
Patrick Patterson isn’t particularly a player that fits the Hornets need for young, cheap players, but his contract does expire at the end of the year. If Charlotte would rather have the cap room than a cheap pair of rookie, twin, forwards, then maybe they say yes.
Read the rest of our “One Trade with every Team” series here:
Pacific Division: Lakers, Warriors, Kings, Suns
Northwest Division: Nuggets, Jazz, Thunder, Blazers, Timberwolves
Southwest Division: Rockets, Mavericks, Grizzlies, Pelicans, Spurs
Atlantic Division: Raptors, Celtics, 76ers, Nets, Knicks
Central Division: Bucks, Pacers, Bulls, Pistons, Cavaliers
Southeast Division: Heat, Magic, Wizards, Hornets, Hawks