This season has not gone the way everyone was expecting it to go for the Charlotte Hornets.
Due in part to injuries to key players and head coach Steve Clifford missing time with health issues, the Hornets are currently just 18-25, which has them in 11th place in the East, and four games out of the playoff picture. As the trade deadline approaches, and the team looking likely to once again be a part of the lottery, they are reportedly open to making a blockbuster move.
According to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski, the Hornets are encouraging other teams to make offers for Kemba Walker, their franchise point guard. Per his report, the team is hoping to use Walker to help offload one of their hefty contracts. Via ESPN:
Overloaded with bad contracts and untradable assets, the Charlotte Hornets have made All-Star point guard Kemba Walker available in trade discussions, league sources told ESPN.
Charlotte has been encouraging teams to make offers and appear eager to discuss attaching Walker to a larger trade where another team takes on one of the Hornets' several far less desirable contracts, sources said.
The Hornets had already made available Nicolas Batum (four years, $100 million), Dwight Howard (two years, $47 million), Marvin Williams (three years, $42 million) and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist (three years, $39 million), league sources said, but those players and their contracts are largely unattractive in the marketplace.
This, obviously, would be a franchise-altering move for the Hornets which would send them into a full rebuild.
CBS Sports will continue to update this story.
