The Charlotte Hornets and Los Angeles Clippers might get mulligans on their big 2014 free-agent signings, Lance Stephenson and Spencer Hawes. The two teams are discussing a trade that would swap the two of them and also send Matt Barnes to Charlotte, according to Yahoo Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski.
Talks have been ongoing for several days, but the proposed deal is yet to be considered imminent.
…
The Clippers are considering the idea of using Stephenson as the primary ballhandler when All-Star Chris Paul is out of the game, league sources said.
When the Hornets signed Stephenson, it was supposed to vault them toward the Eastern Conference's utter echelon. Instead, their chemistry and defense totally fell apart, with the talented guard falling out of favor early, getting hurt and eventually receiving DNP-CDs as the season wound down. He can't be blamed for all of Charlotte's problems, but the fit was not there. The team won just 33 games and missed the postseason.
When the Clippers signed Hawes, he was supposed to be their primary backup big man, spacing the floor for Chris Paul and taking some pressure off of Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan. Like Stephenson, he wound up shooting less than 40 percent from the field, struggling through his poorest season in years. In the playoffs, he barely played against the San Antonio Spurs and contributed only a little bit against the Houston Rockets.
Both players have proven in the past that they're capable of being useful NBA players, even if it was not the case this season. From the Clippers' perspective, it hurts to give up two rotation players for one. Barnes was a valuable member of their rotation and only has one year and $3.4 million left on his contract. Los Angeles is starved for depth and has essentially no financial flexibility, meaning that it needs to take risks like this in order to add real talent. Stephenson was almost an All-Star in 2013-2014, and acquiring him for this package would have seemed like a bargain before this year. You can totally picture him having a huge game against his former team and then pulling a J.R. Smith on Instagram.
Of course, there are reasons why the Hornets have been shopping Stephenson for months. From their perspective, it might just be best to move on from this experiment, which failed spectacularly in its first year. Hawes gives Charlotte a stretch big man, which it really needs, though I'm not thrilled about him potentially taking minutes away from the promising Noah Vonleh. Barnes, while not as skilled as Stephenson, can play solid defense consistently and doesn't need the ball in his hands. There's logic in adding two guys who will just play their roles after watching Stephenson try to do too much.
It's hard to get too excited about this swap, though. The Clippers had an almost unstoppable starting five, and this would break that up. The Hornets must make moves, but Hawes and Barnes aren't game changers. Still, both teams might be so eager for a shakeup that they'll talk themsleves into it.
