The New York Knicks are finalizing a trade that will send Willy Hernangomez to the Charlotte Hornets, according to Yahoo Sports’ Shams Charania. In return, Charlotte will send back Johnny O’Bryant, as well as their 2020 and 2021 second-round picks.
Hernangomez had requested a trade from the Knicks earlier this week, although he made it clear that he loved New York and playing next to Kristaps Porzingis, who is a close friend. However, Hernangomez had fallen out of the rotation this season despite being called a building block last summer by Knicks management.
This season, Hernangomez had only played 26 games while averaging nine minutes, a steep decline from the 72 games played and 18.4 minutes averaged last year.
Why the Knicks made this trade
The biggest reason for Hernangomez’s fall from the rotation was Enes Kanter, who arrived in New York in the Carmelo Anthony trade. Kanter and Hernangomez are both scoring big men who don’t play much defense and have minimal three-point range, and so their skill sets overlap. Instead, New York has typically played Kyle O’Quinn as a backup center.
Hernangomez’s ceiling is likely that of a low-level starter at best. Getting two second-round picks in exchange for a player with middling potential could be seen as a real win.
That said, there’s an argument going the other way, too. The Knicks thought Hernangomez was good enough to play 72 games last season — and he was solid! — and instead buried him in the rotation this year. That prevented any chance that he would develop while also hurting his trade value. He’s good friends with Porzingis, and the team has had a rocky relationship with their biggest star before. It’s not like Hernangomez was making much money — just $3 million over the next two seasons. While he did request a trade, it would not have been hard to carve out some minutes for Hernangomez the rest of this season, especially given Porzingis’ season-ending ACL surgery on Wednesday.
Where you fall on this trade probably depends on your opinion of the 23-year-old Hernangomez’s future.
Why the Hornets made this trade
Clearly, Charlotte is higher on Hernangomez, enough that they sent two second-round picks to New York for him. That’s a somewhat high price for someone who isn’t even in New York’s rotation, and it might be a gamble that the Hornets won’t be scraping the bottom of the league in two seasons. Then again, there may be protections on the picks that we’re not aware of yet that would save the Hornets from losing, say, a pick in the high 30s.
All that said, Hernangomez doesn’t clearly fit into an already-crowded Charlotte frontcourt. The team already has Dwight Howard, Cody Zeller, and Frank Kaminsky. Perhaps this is an indication that there’s another move to be made, but we shouldn’t jump to assumptions.
Still, Hernangomez is under team control for two more years on a cheap deal. If the Hornets like him, they don’t have to play him now. They can work on developing him this season and figure it all out this summer.