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Never say never. Back in March, WSOC-TV asked Steph Curry the question he’s been fielding for years, and instead of the usual diplomatic deflection, Steph grinned and said it outright: you always keep your options open. The question was: will he leave the Warriors to join his hometown Charlotte Hornets? Dell Curry’s number 30 went up into the rafters at Spectrum Center that same week, and Steph had already asked his dad, half-joking but clearly not entirely, whether an exception could be made if it ever came to that. Dell didn’t even blink. Quick yeah, he said. We’d take it down for that, no doubt.
That wasn’t a one-off answer, either. He’s repeated some version of that ever since, always with the same grin, like he knows exactly how much weight the words carry and enjoys carrying them anyway. Since 2022, the Warriors front office has dealt primarily with one question: does this move give Steph another real chance? They traded for Jimmy Butler mid-season because the timeline mattered more than the asset cost. They abandoned the two-timeline philosophy once it became clear that developing tomorrow’s core was costing today’s championship window.
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The Hornets just acted like time is their greatest asset. Charlotte had a young, exciting core that played its way to the edge of the playoffs, the kind of team that makes a building loud again, and the front office looked at it and decided the ceiling wasn’t high enough.
Over the span of three days, the Hornets traded away both LaMelo Ball and Miles Bridges, the two most talented players on a roster that had just spent a full season looking like the most fun, most dangerous version of itself in over a decade. LaMelo and Josh Green went to Minnesota for Naz Reid, an unprotected 2033 first-round pick, three first-round pick swaps, and three second-round picks. Bridges went to Phoenix days later in a separate deal. By the time the dust settled, Charlotte had also added Grayson Allen and Royce O’Neale, restocking the roster with exactly the kind of high-IQ, hard-working, three-point-shooting professionals Charlotte has been hunting…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/heck-charlotte-hornets-ball-trade-075416753.html
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Publish date : 2026-06-30 07:54:00
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