The next trade Hornets must make after shipping LaMelo Ball to Timberwolves

The Charlotte Hornets surprised many on Thursday when they opted to trade point guard LaMelo Ball to the Minnesota Timberwolves in exchange for a package centered around Naz Reid and draft compensation. The move comes after the best season of Ball’s career, in which he led the Hornets to the play-in tournament and had them looking like potential contenders in the Eastern Conference.

Still, even after this big move, the Hornets shouldn’t be done working the phones, and the next obvious candidate to be traded is power forward Miles Bridges.

Bridges’ name has been floated in trade rumors for multiple years now, and the fact that he is on an expiring contract should make him even more enticing for opposing teams.

One player that the Hornets could target in a deal centered around Bridges is Sacramento Kings big man Domantas Sabonis. Sabonis missed most of the 2025-26 season for the Kings due to injury, but remains an elite finisher around the rim and offensive playmaking hub when healthy, and would allow the smaller Reid to slot in at the power forward position and replace Bridges.

This move would give the Hornets elite size in the frontcourt to go along with a still-explosive backcourt of Coby White and Kon Knueppel, with Brandon Miller shoring up the wing position, and some solid depth off the bench. While Charlotte might not be an elite team defensively with this lineup, they’d be able to score with just about anyone, even without Ball’s electric playmaking in the fray.

For the Kings, this move would make sense because it gives them an expiring contract in Bridges that will open up cap space for them at the end of next season and help them start to work their way out of their current roster mess. The Kings might ask the Hornets for some draft compensation to make the deal go through, but Charlotte has plenty of that after dealing Ball to Minnesota.

While it may take some fans a while to get on board with the Ball trade, the Hornets can immediately take a step in the right direction by looking for a Bridges deal to follow it up.

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