{"id":525072,"date":"2026-01-08T14:40:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T14:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/525072\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T14:40:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T14:40:12","slug":"hornets-linked-to-former-nba-champion-ahead-of-trade-deadline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/525072\/","title":{"rendered":"Hornets linked to former NBA Champion ahead of trade deadline"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hornets linked to former NBA Champion ahead of trade deadline<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Charlotte Hornets<\/a> entered Wednesday night’s game against the Toronto Raptors<\/a>, looking to improve on a two-game win streak after victories against the Chicago Bulls<\/a> and Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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That said, it wasn’t quite meant to be. After holding a six-point lead through the first three quarters, the Toronto Raptors outscored Charlotte by seven points in the fourth, defeating the Hornets on a buzzer-beating three-pointer by guard Immanuel Quickley.<\/p>\n

Seconds earlier, LaMelo Ball made a contested layup to take the lead (96-94), a lead that the Hornets thought would hold with just 1.8 seconds remaining.<\/p>\n

In a poor shooting night from the field (37%) for Charlotte, it was Collin Sexton who rose to the occasion, scoring 22 points off the bench on 7-for-13 shooting.<\/p>\n

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PJ Hall continued his strong play in wake of injuries to Ryan Kalkbrenner and Mason Plumlee, scoring eight points to go along with seven rebounds in 15 minutes.<\/p>\n

That said, the Hornets could be in the market for another piece in the frontcourt. According to<\/a> Brett Siegel of Clutch Points, Charlotte has been linked to former NBA Champion Bobby Portis.<\/p>\n

In 36 games for Milwaukee this season, Portis is averaging 13.6 points, 6.5 rebounds and shooting a career-high 47.3% from three-point range.<\/p>\n

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Portis would provide Charlotte with depth, impact minutes and would help the development of Charlotte’s young centers.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, Portis has ties to both head coach Charles Lee and Pat Connaughton, as the three spent time together as members of the Milwaukee Bucks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While Milwaukee could be reluctant to move on from Portis, he’d certainly make a great pickup for Charlotte, if they can acquire him for the right price.<\/p>\n

The salaries of both Josh Green and Grant Williams are nearly identical to that of Portis’ making one of those two players likely to be included in a possible return.<\/p>\n

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Collin Sexton’s contract is a bit larger, however, he could be shopped by Charlotte given that he’ll reach free agency at the end of the season.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Charlotte will continue to chase a top-10 spot in order to reach the NBA Play-In tournament. Their next mstchup is Thursday at home against the Indiana Pacers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

More NBA news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hornets linked to former NBA Champion ahead of trade deadline originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":525073,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3777],"tags":[7,507,684,473,3878,329,1585,1439,685,3715,126,5756,966,12445,102,121,6,179,2761,26848,972,476],"class_list":{"0":"post-525072","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-charlotte-hornets","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-bobby-portis","10":"tag-charlotte","11":"tag-charlotte-hornets","12":"tag-charlottehornets","13":"tag-chicago-bulls","14":"tag-collin-sexton","15":"tag-grant-williams","16":"tag-hornets","17":"tag-immanuel-quickley","18":"tag-indiana-pacers","19":"tag-josh-green","20":"tag-lamelo-ball","21":"tag-mason-plumlee","22":"tag-milwaukee","23":"tag-milwaukee-bucks","24":"tag-nba","25":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","26":"tag-pat-connaughton","27":"tag-pj-hall","28":"tag-ryan-kalkbrenner","29":"tag-toronto-raptors"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115860002018707516","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=525072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/525073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=525072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=525072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=525072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}