{"id":777887,"date":"2026-07-04T10:45:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T10:45:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/777887\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T10:45:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T10:45:16","slug":"lakers-trading-deandre-ayton-to-wizards-for-jaden-hardy-draft-picks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/777887\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakers trading Deandre Ayton to Wizards for Jaden Hardy, draft picks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Lakers<\/a> are trading center Deandre Ayton<\/a> to the Washington Wizards for guard Jaden Hardy<\/a> and two second-round draft picks, in 2031 and 2032, people not authorized to speak publicly confirmed to The Times on Friday.<\/p>\n

Ayton had returned to the Lakers after an up-and-down first season with the team, picking up his player option for $8.1 million last Sunday. But he became expendable once the Lakers agreed to acquire 24-year-old center Walker Kessle<\/a>r from the Utah Jazz and sign him to a four-year, $130-million contract.<\/p>\n

The Ayton trade leaves the Lakers in the market for a backup center. Several veterans including Jonas Valanciunas and Kevon Looney still are available. <\/p>\n

The Lakers acquired Ayton before last season<\/a> after the Portland Trail Blazers bought out his contract, signing him to a two-year, $16-million deal. He averaged career lows of 12.5 points and 8.0 rebounds last season, but shot 67.1% from the field while starting 72 games, both career highs.<\/p>\n

The Wizards believe the 7-foot Ayton will be a good fit alongside centers Anthony Davis and Alex Sarr.<\/p>\n

The 6-3 Hardy, who spent three-plus seasons with the Dallas Mavericks before being traded to Washington in February, averaged 9.2 points, 1.5 rebounds and 1.0 assists while shooting 42.4% from the field and 39.7% from three-point range last season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Lakers are trading center Deandre Ayton to the Washington Wizards for guard Jaden Hardy and two second-round…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":777888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3780],"tags":[3845,94855,26622,7,2739,1586,3467,10608,7138,6890,300,1651,1780,6,65,682,468,3892,683],"class_list":["post-777887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-washington-wizards","tag-andre-drummond","tag-ayton-last-season","tag-backup-center","tag-basketball","tag-deal","tag-deandre-ayton","tag-draft-pick","tag-field","tag-jaden-hardy","tag-jonas-valanciunas","tag-lakers","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-market","tag-nba","tag-point","tag-washington","tag-washington-wizards","tag-washingtonwizards","tag-wizards"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116861306345367168","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777887","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=777887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/777888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}