Rumor: Charlotte Hornets contact the Dallas Mavericks to help facilitate Kemba Walker trade
It’s no secret that the Charlotte Hornets are listening to offers for Kemba Walker but the team has reportedly made contact with the Mavs over a potential deal.
According to Mike Fisher of Scout.com, the Charlotte Hornets have contacted the Dallas Mavericks about facilitating a trade involving Kemba Walker. The talks aren’t about Kemba going to the Mavs but about Dallas being a team that could help complete a potentially bigger trade with another team by taking on a salary.
If the Mavericks were to get involved in a potential deal surrounding Walker, it sounds like they would be the third team in a three-team trade. They would take one of Charlotte’s larger contracts and possibly get a pick or two in return while Kemba would be shipped off to a different team.
With Dallas being nearly $13 million under the salary cap, they have space to take on larger contracts which is what the Hornets are trying to shed. Adrian Wojnarowski reported that the Queen City team has made Kemba available in trade talks in an effort to help clear cap space by packaging the all-star point guard with one of their bad contracts like Nicolas Batum, Dwight Howard, Marvin Williams and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist.
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If this report is true, it sounds like the Hornets are not just listening to offers for Kemba Walker but that they are actively trying to find ways to complete a potential trade. They reportedly went out of their way to contact Dallas to figure out if they would be interested in helping facilitate a potential deal.
If Charlotte was to pair Kemba Walker with a large contract in a trade, they would likely need a facilitating team like the Mavs to help complete the move as they are one of only seven teams under the salary cap this season.
This rumor makes me wonder if Dallas would be willing to take on Nic Batum’s massive contract considering that they were interested in signing the Frenchman when he was a free agent in the summer of 2016. Although, the Mavs were also interested in signing Marvin Williams that offseason as well so they could still want to bring him in.
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A number of teams are expected to be interested (one being the Pistons) in Kemba but few have the means to complete a trade straight up so a third team like Dallas being included would make sense. It will be interesting to see if the Mavericks are involved if a deal does happen before the February 8th trade deadline. It would be a blockbuster level trade if Walker is moved.