LaMelo Traded to Minnesota

[driveandkick]

The more I think about it, the more I believe this trade was actually rather savvy. Minnesota and Charlotte basically bet, from opposite sides, on LaMelo's injury risk and maturity.

The pro's for us is that Minnesota have effectively maxed themselves out, and now have no assets left to trade. In the West, I think they're still around the 6th seed if healthy. If Melo is injured, they're an easy lottery team. That 2028 pick may end up being quite good, not to mention the picks in the 2030's.


Teams still better than Minnesota:

OKC
SAS
Denver
Lakers (depends on if they can replace LeBron with role players)
Utah (hot take)

Of course, the real hilarity will begin when Vegas/Seattle enter the league and Minnesota gets moved into the East.

You could have easily sold me on the decision to move him pending a certain return. IMO what we got doesn’t make this anywhere near worth it. A role player and a 2033 first.

Would rather just gamble he stays healthy and pay out the rest of his deal instead of taking such a meager return.

[wilson115]

Not sure what to make of these grades from the national media here, compared to what actual Hornets beat writers have to say.

'LaMelo Ball Deserved Better'
'The LaMelo Ball Trade Already Feels Like the Luka Doncic Mistake Dallas Made'
'Hornets' LaMelo Ball Trade Means Kon Knueppel May Never Reach His Full Potential'
'Rationalizing Charlotte's Shocking Decision to Trade LaMelo Ball to Minnesota'
https://www.si.com/nba/hornets

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[Trey24]

That timeline was straight from thin air

As was the idea that the value we got for him (Nurk) is more than we just got.

We got a mid level first and we got Coby White as a result of that trade. Pretty equal. And also I am judging it based off of Josh Green having the same surgery at the same time last season

[Trey24]

Not sure what to make of these grades from the national media here, compared to what actual Hornets beat writers have to say.

'LaMelo Ball Deserved Better'
'The LaMelo Ball Trade Already Feels Like the Luka Doncic Mistake Dallas Made'
'Hornets' LaMelo Ball Trade Means Kon Knueppel May Never Reach His Full Potential'
'Rationalizing Charlotte's Shocking Decision to Trade LaMelo Ball to Minnesota'
https://www.si.com/nba/hornets

Read on Twitter

Adam Silver collaboration

[HMFFL]

Congratulations on moving LaMelo Ball.
Your roster is looking better and better. It's about time Hornet fans have success. We'll done!

[wilson115]

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[KingCat]

Media and the NBA community as a whole really thinks this is a fine trade for us.

Either they dont know how much of an engine Melo is for us or we are biased towards his short comings due to being our franchise guy for half a decade. Probably a little bit of both.

[GiggitySmalls]

Congratulations on moving LaMelo Ball.
Your roster is looking better and better. It's about time Hornet fans have success. We'll done!

I think im the only happy hornets fan around here. Im over the moon that the adult child, immature, non serious, habitual injury risk is gone and we can move on from the shackles of lamelo ball. Rood riddance!

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[Natural_Bridge]

I guess I’m most confused by people acting like LaMelo was actively holding us back. You can be mad that he wasn’t good enough to lead Rozier and Hayward on a playoff run or a rookie Kon and busted up Miller, but at the end of the day the org let him down a lot more than he let us down. Dude honestly never had an iota of a chance to succeed with what they gave him to work with

[Braggins]

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?s=20

[luciano-davidwesley]

What I don't understand is we decided to go for it this year from January and decided not to tank, effectively taking ourselves out of the Dybsanta/Peterson/Boozer/Wilson sweepstakes. Our prize was another Play-In meltdown.

Pick 14 was the cost of doing business to set up a scenario to see how we would go this year if we ran it back with some minor upgrades up front. Then we decide to blow it up after the fact anyway, but took ourselves out of the sweepstakes to get a real difference maker in this year's draft.

WTF!!! Pick a direction and stick with it Peterson!!!

[GiggitySmalls]

I guess I’m most confused by people acting like LaMelo was actively holding us back. You can be mad that he wasn’t good enough to lead Rozier and Hayward on a playoff run or a rookie Kon and busted up Miller, but at the end of the day the org let him down a lot more than he let us down. Dude honestly never had an iota of a chance to succeed with what they gave him to work with

The guy who missed half the season for 3 straight years was let down? That's a bold take.

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[Stun704]

The only way this trade makes sense is if we trade for Steph

[Chapelchilla]

What I don't understand is we decided to go for it this year from January and decided not to tank, effectively taking ourselves out of the Dybsanta/Peterson/Boozer/Wilson sweepstakes. Our prize was another playin meltdown.

Pick 14 was the cost of doing business to set up a scenario to see how we would go this year if we ran it back with some minor upgrades up front. Then we decide to blow it up after the fact anyway, but took ourselves out of the sweepstakes to get a real difference maker in this years draft.

WTF!!! Pick a direction and stick with it Peterson!!!

Or maybe we wanted to see if Lamelo could be enough of a catalyst to get us in the playoffs first?

[Stun704]

I guess I’m most confused by people acting like LaMelo was actively holding us back. You can be mad that he wasn’t good enough to lead Rozier and Hayward on a playoff run or a rookie Kon and busted up Miller, but at the end of the day the org let him down a lot more than he let us down. Dude honestly never had an iota of a chance to succeed with what they gave him to work with

The guy who missed half the season for 3 straight years was let down? That's a bold take.

Sent from my SM-S936U using RealGM Forums mobile app

Hornets failed Melo the same way the Panthers failed CMC

[wilson115]

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[Natural_Bridge]

I guess I’m most confused by people acting like LaMelo was actively holding us back. You can be mad that he wasn’t good enough to lead Rozier and Hayward on a playoff run or a rookie Kon and busted up Miller, but at the end of the day the org let him down a lot more than he let us down. Dude honestly never had an iota of a chance to succeed with what they gave him to work with

The guy who missed half the season for 3 straight years was let down? That's a bold take.

Sent from my SM-S936U using RealGM Forums mobile app

Wasn’t the narrative at the time that he could have played more games if we had anything to play for?

[luciano-davidwesley]

Trying to find some minor positives here

We get off Josh Green's $14.6m salary and create a roster spot opening.
We create a TPE
We take back about $32 million less salary
Naz is OK but not on Melo's level
The pick swaps probably have more value under the new system and I think at least 1 is a decent chance of conveying. Minnesota are traditionally a similar basketcase to us.

[SWedd523]

The pick swaps are effectively useless because we're going to have a worse record each of those years

Or am I missing something?

[Bassman]

Great article from Yahoo Sports. Author utilized sources around the league to construct how this whole situation evolved. IMPORTANT AND WORTH THE BRIEF READ! Excerpts to follow:

https://sports.yahoo.com/nba/article/how-the-lamelo-ball-era-in-charlotte-came-to-its-sudden-end-000554287.html