While many felt that the Charlotte Hornets did not have any interest at the trade deadline, it’s now safe to say that one team wanted to make a big trade with them.
During the NBA’s hiatus period, Charlotte Hornets fans have looked for some huge news. With three weeks without basketball, fans learned of a team that really wanted to trade with the Hornets.
On Monday, Ian Begley of SNY confirmed that the New York Knicks had a lot of interest in trading for a point guard. According to Begley, the Knicks were targeting Terry Rozier and D’Angelo Russell.
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When it came to trading for Rozier, the Knicks’ organization had a lot of internal support for one trade package they wanted to send to Charlotte. In this trade, the Knicks would send the Hornets Julius Randle, Dennis Smith Jr., and a future first-round pick.
Sources also confirmed that the Knicks wanted Terry Rozier and Malik Monk. In the end, this was a trade that fell through; many felt that the Hornets did not like this trade idea.
Giving up Rozier was tough for Charlotte, as he’s one of the team’s leading scorers. In just 63 games, he’s averaged 18.0 points, 4.1 assists, and 4.4 rebounds per game for the Hornets.
Monk, however, has had an up and down season with his numbers. At one point, he had career lows, but he’s raised his averages to 10.3 points and 2.9 rebounds per game; these are new career highs.
Moreover, Monk was also suspended indefinitely in late February after he failed a drug test given by the league. While this suspension surprised many, it also came the day after his first career start.
It’s no secret that the Hornets were getting back some talent for these two players, but there’s been no confirmation on how much interest the Hornets had for this trade.
One of the players, Julius Randle, was a player that Hornets’ general manager Mitch Kupchak drafted when he was with the Los Angeles Lakers. With that said, the trade interest made sense because of the connection Kupchak had with Randle.