Grant Williams isn’t pretending the Charlotte Hornets’ latest moves were easy to swallow.
After the team dealt away Miles Bridges and LaMelo Ball, Williams acknowledged just how much change hit the locker room at once. The Hornets forward, who is on an expiring deal, said the front office’s work at least gave the roster a clearer identity on the floor.
"Jeff [Peterson] did a phenomenal job in our trades of getting great shooting around our roster, and it should be a fun style of basketball to play," Williams began, highlighting the ridiculous amount of three-point shooting the Ball and Bridges trade brought in.
Williams also made it clear that the departures weren’t minor losses. Charlotte is now trying to move forward with a roster that looks very different from the one it had before the trades.
"We have a completely new roster, which is part of the NBA. You gotta get used to playing with different guys. We lost two incredible players in LaMelo [Ball] and Miles [Bridges], but we got really good rookies in Hannes [Steinbach] and Christian [Anderson] coming in, and we have a lot of expectations for Coby White and the guys coming up to really show up," Williams said.
That kind of turnover has changed the mood around the team. Before the trades, there was real buzz after Charlotte added Steinbach and Anderson Jr. in the draft and expected to bring White back as well. Those moves had fans feeling optimistic, but the trade fallout cooled that energy fast.
Still, Williams isn’t shutting the door on what comes next. He believes there’s enough talent on the roster to make the new setup work, even if it meant saying goodbye to two players who were central to how the Hornets played last season.
There’s also the contract angle hanging over all of this. Williams could be positioning himself for an extension, and he has clearly enjoyed playing close to home in Charlotte. He’s been a useful bench piece, but his deal is ending, and his future with the Hornets is still unresolved.
In Other News...
Hornets Quietly Added A Long Term Piece In The LaMelo Trade
Buried in the four-team deal around LaMelo Ball, Charlotte also picked up a more subtle asset for the future: the draft rights to Italian guard Matteo Spagnolo. The move does not change the Hornets immediate rotation, but it does give the front office another young piece to monitor, the kind of low-cost swing that can matter later if a player keeps trending in the right direction.
Spagnolo has spent his development years overseas, building experience with Alba Berlin and now Saski Baskonia rather than making the jump to the NBA right away. For Charlotte, that makes him a classic long-term stash candidate, someone who can keep sharpening his game in Europe while the Hornets decide when, or if, the timing is right for him to come stateside. [Read more 🡒]
Hornets Season Outlook Just Put Their Post LaMelo Reality In Focus
The Hornets offseason has already changed the shape of the conversation around next year, with LaMelo Ball and Miles Bridges no longer part of the picture and a new mix of young talent expected to carry more of the load. Brandon Miller and Kon Knueppel sit at the center of that shift, and the front offices bet is clear: Charlotte needs its next wave to grow up quickly if the team is going to stay competitive in a crowded East.
Coby White is part of that broader evaluation too, because the roster now has to find enough shot creation and stability from within rather than leaning on the familiar star power it used to have. The Hornets may still hang around the playoff conversation if things break right, but the more realistic question is whether this group can keep pace with last seasons standard while also avoiding a slide into the lottery race. [Read more 🡒]