{"id":777531,"date":"2026-07-04T00:45:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T00:45:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/777531\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T00:45:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T00:45:17","slug":"sources-lakers-trading-ayton-to-wizards-for-hardy-future-picks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/777531\/","title":{"rendered":"Sources: Lakers trading Ayton to Wizards for Hardy, future picks"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> are trading center Deandre Ayton<\/a> to the Washington Wizards<\/a> for guard Jaden Hardy<\/a> and two second-round picks in 2031 and 2032, sources told ESPN’s Shams Charania on Friday.<\/p>\n

L.A., which agreed to a sign-and-trade with the Utah Jazz<\/a> for center Walker Kessler<\/a> earlier this week, will search for a backup big man on the market.Andre Drummond<\/a>, Jonas Valanciunas<\/a> and Kevon Looney<\/a> are among those being considered, sources told Charania.<\/p>\n

The two second-round picks will help replenish the Lakers’ long-term draft assets after the team parted with two future first-round picks and two future pick swaps in the Kessler deal.<\/p>\n

Washington will add Ayton to a big-man rotation featuring Alex Sarr<\/a>, who was the No. 2 pick in the 2024 draft, and Anthony Davis<\/a>, a 10-time All-Star. Sarr had surgery to repair a fracture in his right foot last month, and Ayton’s presence will provide insurance for Washington’s front line while Sarr recovers.<\/p>\n

Ayton joined L.A. after securing a buyout with the Portland Trail Blazers<\/a> last summer. He played 72 games, starting all of them, and averaged 12.5 points on 67.1% shooting and 8.0 rebounds. He had a major impact on the Lakers’ first-round postseason victory over the Houston Rockets<\/a>, averaging 11.8 points on 60.4% shooting, 10.8 rebounds and 1.0 blocks in six games, but he was less effective in the second round when L.A. was swept by the Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> (7.3 points on 45.2% shooting, 7.8 rebounds).<\/p>\n

Washington could acquire Ayton into its $13.4 million Kelly Olynyk<\/a> trade exception, which expires July 9, according to ESPN NBA front office insider Bobby Marks. If the Wizards do that, they will create a new $6 million exception.<\/p>\n

Hardy, 23, a former teammate of Luka Doncic’s in Dallas, averaged 12.6 points on 44.3% shooting (42% from 3), 1.7 rebounds and 1.3 assists in 23 games after being traded to Washington last season. He has two years and $12 million remaining on his contract, with a team option for 2027-28.br\/]<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Los Angeles Lakers are trading center Deandre Ayton to the Washington Wizards for guard Jaden Hardy and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":777532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3780],"tags":[94823,28286,7,130,94822,150,6,67,682,468,3892,683],"class_list":["post-777531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-washington-wizards","tag-94823","tag-ayton-deandre","tag-basketball","tag-espn","tag-hardy-jaden","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-nba","tag-news","tag-washington","tag-washington-wizards","tag-washingtonwizards","tag-wizards"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116858947083904141","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777531","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=777531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/777532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}