Return to Sender: The Mark Williams Thread

[Braggins]

I'm back to being highly suspicious of basically every aspect of this franchise, though. Thats for sure.

[fatlever]

Do you think he is unable to play, or that he just won't continue to play for the Hornets because of how this all went down? If its the second thing then yeah, I think there is a good chance they will shut him down and trade him this offseason.

I think it's pretty clear that if they found multiple injuries with his foot that were a concern then he probably shouldn't have been playing for the past few weeks. We don't know if they were never healed correctly the first time or if he re injured him recently. But he has not been moving well since he came back. So there's no reason to play him now just to try to spite the Lakers and prove that he was actually healthy. Shut him down let him get healthy and have a summer to finally work on adding some strength or something. But at some point they have to make a decision on continuing to pick up his contracts. And if they were worried enough about his health to try to ship him off then I can't imagine a world where they're going to commit big money to him on a long term deal. At best he makes it to restricted free agency and maybe gets a prove it deal like we gave to miles. And if your mark why are you going to want to stick around with a franchise that tried to trade you.? I won't say it's impossible that he gets signed to a long term second deal with us but I find it extremely unlikely at this point that that happens. And I finally extremely unlikely that he doesn't get shut down for the rest of the year

I've been wrong a million times before so we'll see.

I don't think hes looked like someone who isn't physically able to play recently. Hes literally had 30 point games in the last few weeks and games with nearly 20 rebounds.

The Lakers were trading an unprotected 2031 1st for him, so they had to be confident he was going to be their franchise center six years from now if they were going to go through with the trade. I think their decision at the very least means they werent willing to bet on his health 5+ years from now, but not necessarily that he is in such bad condition that he shouldn't be currently playing.

I don't think hes ever looked quite as spry as he did before the injuries, but I don't think hes looked that bad, and I thought he looked more lazy than anything recently. I didn't think the laziness looked that bad until after both LaMelo and Miller went down and we were trotting out GLeague teams with him, so idk. I'm not convinced hes necessarily just toast and his career is basically over. I'm definitely not confident he will have a very long career though.

I would sit him out for a bit to focus on conditioning and avoid injury either way, wouldnt even be mad at the entire season. I also think its possible his relationship with the team is toast and they'll try to trade him.

I mean clearly he is physically able to play I mean he obviously was playing games. The question is should he have been playing did playing him prematurely jeopardize his foot rehabilitation? I mean I guess if Mark really wants to play and the Hornets want to put their middle finger up at the Lakers they can play mark every game for the rest of the year and say see we told you he was healthy.

[Chapelchilla]

If we can afford it, a 3 man center rotation of Nurkic, Mark and Diabate could wear teams out with lots of versatility. Guess we will see what they all decide to do soon.

[EmpireFalls]

Jeff Peterson is either devious or totally incompetent

I thought you moved on to the Spurs?

That’s a complete lie and I never said anything of the sort. What are you talking about

[MasterIchiro]

I'm back to being highly suspicious of basically every aspect of this franchise, though. Thats for sure.

Really, not LeBron, Klutch, and Los Angeles though, huh?

[countryboi]

That other team.. whats beef

Read on Twitter

[fatlever]

Maybe I'll try to see this from a different angle to make myself a little less annoyed...
Maybe Mark will take this as a huge personal slight and completely ball out for the next year and a half and get paid.
But I really did kind of like watching moose play 30 plus minutes last night. I'm going to have an aneurysm watching Mark be a traffic cone if he comes back.

[Braggins]

Spoiler:

I think it's pretty clear that if they found multiple injuries with his foot that were a concern then he probably shouldn't have been playing for the past few weeks. We don't know if they were never healed correctly the first time or if he re injured him recently. But he has not been moving well since he came back. So there's no reason to play him now just to try to spite the Lakers and prove that he was actually healthy. Shut him down let him get healthy and have a summer to finally work on adding some strength or something. But at some point they have to make a decision on continuing to pick up his contracts. And if they were worried enough about his health to try to ship him off then I can't imagine a world where they're going to commit big money to him on a long term deal. At best he makes it to restricted free agency and maybe gets a prove it deal like we gave to miles. And if your mark why are you going to want to stick around with a franchise that tried to trade you.? I won't say it's impossible that he gets signed to a long term second deal with us but I find it extremely unlikely at this point that that happens. And I finally extremely unlikely that he doesn't get shut down for the rest of the year

I've been wrong a million times before so we'll see.

I don't think hes looked like someone who isn't physically able to play recently. Hes literally had 30 point games in the last few weeks and games with nearly 20 rebounds.

The Lakers were trading an unprotected 2031 1st for him, so they had to be confident he was going to be their franchise center six years from now if they were going to go through with the trade. I think their decision at the very least means they werent willing to bet on his health 5+ years from now, but not necessarily that he is in such bad condition that he shouldn't be currently playing.

I don't think hes ever looked quite as spry as he did before the injuries, but I don't think hes looked that bad, and I thought he looked more lazy than anything recently. I didn't think the laziness looked that bad until after both LaMelo and Miller went down and we were trotting out GLeague teams with him, so idk. I'm not convinced hes necessarily just toast and his career is basically over. I'm definitely not confident he will have a very long career though.

I would sit him out for a bit to focus on conditioning and avoid injury either way, wouldnt even be mad at the entire season. I also think its possible his relationship with the team is toast and they'll try to trade him.

I mean clearly he is physically able to play I mean he obviously was playing games. The question is should he have been playing did playing him prematurely jeopardize his foot rehabilitation? I mean I guess if Mark really wants to play and the Hornets want to put their middle finger up at the Lakers they can play mark every game for the rest of the year and say see we told you he was healthy.

Yeah, who knows. This situation is bizarre and happening right after the head of the medical staff left is suss. I don't think hes looked so bad physically that I'm worried hes toast, but I could definitely see them being overly aggressive with his recovery to boost his trade value before the deadline. He could definitely need some time off. No way Id play him for a while either way and giving him the entire rest of the season to go hard on conditioning sounds good to me. It would be such a disaster if something happened in this dead season. Diabate and Nurkic is functional enough for a tanking year.

[Snidely FC]

No! this is total bulls**t

[fatlever]

And I feel like I read from a million different places that the Hornets were the ones that approached the Lakers. I get that neither team wants to be the one that admits that they were the ones that initiated the trade considering the players are coming back.

[countryboi]

No matter what the truth is, the hornets are gonna come out of this looking like the bad guy

[Braggins]

I'm back to being highly suspicious of basically every aspect of this franchise, though. Thats for sure.

Really, not LeBron, Klutch, and Los Angeles though, huh?

Idk, I'm not ready to throw anyone under the bus. The situation is just weird.

[fatlever]

No matter what the truth is, the hornets are gonna come out of this looking like the bad guy

That much I agree with 100 percent. We don't have the lebron, Lakers, klutch PR machine behind us.

[countryboi]

No matter what the truth is, the hornets are gonna come out of this looking like the bad guy

That much I agree with 100 percent. We don't have the lebron, Lakers, klutch PR machine behind us.

You can already see the media machine working

[yosemiteben]

In what universe are we going to look bad? Like anyone could be surprised he's had a tendency to get injured?

Is the operating theory that we showed up and said, "Yep, good as new like he's never been hurt" when he was like 2 weeks removed from a minutes restriction?

[NCHeels2008]

I think they were riding high on the Luka trade, made an impulse decision, and got cold feet.

This is good for Mark. The Lakers embarrassed him and told him they don't want him. If he doesn't get the competitive fire to work hard now and get that 2nd contract, then he'll never ever have it.

yeah I don't think so, there was so much optimism and buzz that with a real center the Lakers could contend this year. I think the physical had to be horrific for them not to want to keep this trade.

[Braggins]

MPM is a precog though

[NCHeels2008]

the most hornets thing ever. jesus christ. what a ****.
mark is a mess. front office knew it. disaster.

Well Tyson Chandler failed a physical and still lasted a good while, I suppose it could be something that's risky but not a certainty

[MasterIchiro]

I'm back to being highly suspicious of basically every aspect of this franchise, though. Thats for sure.

Really, not LeBron, Klutch, and Los Angeles though, huh?

Idk, I'm not ready to throw anyone under the bus. The situation is just weird.

What's weird is that Redick played on the same team as Luka.

Then the Lakers hired Redick after he interviewed in Charlotte. Luka pointed at him and mocked him on camera.

This trade deadline is the same one Mavs inexplicably gave exclusive negotiating rights for Luka with specifically the Lakers, and not even Jason Kidd knew about it.

This is the team now saying we approached them.

They had just traded AD so logic tells me their GM had to scramble and call EVERYBODY, including us.

I believe the Lakers pursued Mark aggressively and we extracted a toll that sent them in a frenzy. They had to say yes, but needed to extend the trade deadline for internal deliberations, which is exactly what they did here.

Mark is not dominant enough to fit the LeBron window. The man can opt out after a failed playoff run, or he can stay if the Lakers are able to pull off a deal for a win-now piece this summer using Knecht, Reaves and not 1 first now but 2. The one they reneged on and the 1 they get after surrendering their 2025 pick.

Expect Mark to see the floor plenty again. Lakers doctors aren't telling us anything we didn't already know when we cleared him to play 30+ minutes.

His clearance to play remains.

And don't be surprised about it.

[NCHeels2008]

I know everyone loves a conspiracy theory especially involving the Lakers. But I can't imagine there's any world where they wanted this to happen. They wanted Mark and needed Mark and he's a fantastic partner for Luka. Not to mention they just their relationship with their first round rookie

We all know what Mark looked like when he was healthy in his 1st and 2nd year before the back and foot injuries. The version we saw of him the past month looked nothing like that player. He looked like he had lead injected into his feet. It shouldn't surprise anyone that he failed a physical. I was thinking for two days that I'd be shocked if he actually passed it. Which you put any trust in our medical staff even if they're new.

they might have realised there is plenty of buyout candidates to fill the void of being big and grabbing rebounds.

none with anywhere near the upside of Mark, lets get real