The Los Angeles Lakers officially rescinded the Mark Williams trade on Saturday night due to a failed physical. Williams now heads back to the Charlotte Hornets and the team has released an interesting statement following this turn of events.
“We are excited to welcome Mark back to our Hornets organization,” the statement read. “After the other team aggressively pursued Mark, we made the difficult decision to move him. We have always held great respect for Mark’s talent, work ethic, and character. We are thrilled to see him rejoin our roster as a dynamic presence at the starting center position. His return strengthens our team, and we look forward to the impact he will make on and off the court.”
The Hornets referred to the Lakers as the “other team” there and claimed they had aggressively pursued Williams. They made it clear they reluctantly parted ways with the big man but Lakers GM Rob Pelinka’s past comments suggest that was not the case. Pelinka had revealed that the Hornets had reached out to the Lakers for a trade.
“In a small press conference with reporters pregame, Lakers VP of basketball ops and GM Rob Pelinka said that Charlotte reached out to LA regarding their need for a center. The Mark Williams trade was negotiated and agreed upon between the two sides in less than two days.”
Once the Lakers realized Williams was available, they offered Dalton Knecht, Cam Reddish, a 2030 first-round pick swap, and a 2031 first-round pick. They were aggressive there, but according to Pelinka, that was only after the Hornets expressed a willingness to ship the big man out of town. Who’s telling the truth here? Well, only those involved really know.
What we do know, is Williams, who is averaging 15.6 points, 9.6 rebounds, 2.5 assists, 0.7 steals, and 1.2 blocks per game this season, has been plagued by injuries. The most games he has played in a single season is 43 and he missed the first 20 games of this 2024-25 season due to a strained tendon in his left foot.
Despite that, the Lakers were willing to take the risk as they were initially comfortable with what they had seen from Williams’ medical records. Here’s what Pelinka had said about the 23-year-old’s injury history.
“We fully vetted his health stuff, led by Dr. Kris Jones at UCLA Health and Dr. Leroy Sims on our team, and he’s had no surgeries,” Pelinka said. “So these are just parts of, he’s still growing into his body. We vetted the injuries he’s had and we’re not concerned about those. We will have a chance to have a physical and continue to do a deep dive and make sure that what we’ve talked about and seen in the [electronic medical records]. … So we’ll still have that step in the process of doing a full physical before the trade becomes official.”
Once the Lakers did that full physical, they appeared to have realized there were too many issues and were no longer comfortable with making this deal. We don’t know all the details but the fact that they’d rather not have a starting caliber big man for the rest of the season than make this deal suggests there is a lot wrong with Williams. It will be very interesting to see what he has to say about this turn of events.
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