Lakers acquires Mark Williams, Send Dalton Knecht, Cam Reddish, Draft Hornets: Sources

By John Hollinger, Jovan Buha and Zach Powell

Los Angeles Lakers Handles Dalton Knecht, Cam Reddish, a 2031 first round pick and a 2030 pick swap for Charlotte Hornets Center Mark Williams, team sources confirmed to The athletic.

Lakers sends two of its younger assets and drafts of Capital East to Par Williams, a 7-foot-2 center, with five-time all-star Luka Dončić. Knecht, 23, wins traction, approaching the halfway mark in his rookie season, an average of 9.4 points and 3.1 rebounds on 46.5 percent shooting from the field. Meanwhile, Reddish has logged only 31 games to Lakers this season.

Williams is an up-and-one big thing that could do well with Lakers. In Charlotte, Williams was an average of 16.0 points and 9.8 rebounds in 22 action matches.

The deal comes only four days after Lakers treated superstar Anthony Davis to Dallas for Dončić in a Blockbuster deal.

Giving sense of the agreement

Lakers gave up more draft equity to get Williams than they did to get Dončić! The damaged big man fits a particular niche on their team when it’s healthy, like a giant rebounder and shot blocker that can finish around the edge. However, he has not really been the type of rim runner that you might imagine to thrive next to Dončić.

Another item that had to tempt Lakers is that Williams is on his rookie contract through 2026, earning only $ 6.3 million next season. It should allow Lakers to more easily add other pieces to the set -up. However, one can rather question whether it was worth the last chips that Lakers had left to play in their 2031 first and Knecht. – John Hollinger, Senior NBA -author

How Williams pair with Dončić

When Laker’s Vice President of Basketball Operations and General Manager Rob Pelinka described the type of center that the franchise was looking for in front of the 2025 trading deadline, he used the terms “versatility”, “mobility”, “a vertical lob threat” and “Competitive.”

These expressions largely describe Mark Williams.

After hearing Dončić shortly after trading over the weekend, Lakers prioritized adding a lob threat and rhyme runner to pair with Dončić in a similar vein like Dereck Lively II and Daniel Gafford, Dončić’s former Dallas teammates.

During his last 10 games, Williams was an average of 20.3 points, 12.6 rebounds and 1.5 blocks. Once he has played more than 20 minutes in a game this season, he is an average of 18.7 points, 11.6 rebounds, 2.9 assists and 1.4 blocks of 59.2 percent shooting.

He has eight double-double in these 15 games.

The two biggest concerns with Williams are the nuances of his defense and his injury history. While he can block shots due to his athletics and record setting 9-foot-9 standing range, Williams can fight in pick-and-roll coverage and with the details of that end of the floor. He has never played more than 43 games in one season (he played in 23 of Hornets ’48 games this season).

Given the state of the center market – both the lack of the possibilities and the high prices – and the alternative to getting this type of relocation to be Jaxson Hayes who continued to start, Lakers did almost as good as possible. – Jovan Buha, Lakers beat Author

Charlotte becomes free in the middle

Everyone wants to focus on the Laker side of things, but can we talk about Charlotte for a moment? While the new administration that was not married to the old regime’s draft election, Williams was a productive 23-year center, and in his absence has the absolute zero size of the horn. What is the succession plan in the center position in the future? Was this strictly an active game for a team that apparently goes even deeper into a reconstruction? Should we read tea leaves on the future of Lamelo Ball based on this trait? Or was it simply raw opportunism, just for good offer to give up an harmful player who was going to an expansion this summer? – Hollinger

Required reading

(Photo: Katelyn Mulcahy/Getty Images)