New Orleans Hornets Trade Jarrett Jack
The Hornets have traded starting point guard Jarrett Jack to the Golden State Warriors as a part of a three-team deal. The Hornets were added to the Philadelphia-Golden State trade involving Dorrell Wright being moved to the 76ers and for their effort, New Orleans clears even more cap space and adds the draft rights to Edin Bavcic.
This is just another step in the Hornets’ massive roster overhaul that began draft week when they traded Emeka Okafor and Trevor Ariza to the Wizards for Rashard Lewis, who they immediately cut. On draft night their rebuild officially kicked into gear when they grabbed two potential stars, in number one overall pick Anthony Davis and tenth overall pick Austin Rivers. Then over the weekend, the Hornets traded for and signed restricted free agent and last year’s Most Improved Player, Ryan Anderson. Now with Jack gone and the team expected to let Chris Kaman, Marco Belinelli and Carl Landry walk, the team will have four new starters and will have lost at least seven players from last year’s rotation.
Now to the trade itself. Jack was a solid leader and was actually one of the team’s best players last year, as he averaged more than 15 points and 6 assists per game, while starting the majority of the season at point guard. But he simply was not a part of the team’s plans going forward and they have been open about looking for a young point guard to take the team into their Chris Paul-less future. The trade does open up a lot more needed cap space for free agency, but the timing of the move is a little odd, as the team does not really have a legitimate option to take over at point guard. The team hopes that Rivers will one day soon be able to become a full time point guard, but for now he simply does not look the part of a starting point guard and it will take a lot of time and work for him to become one. They do still have Greivis Vasquez who played quite well when Jarrett Jack was hurt, but because of a severe lack of speed and athleticism, his upside is quite limited, although he is an excellent passer and shooter. Regardless he is best served off the bench. The team must have some plan regarding a point guard, because the cupboard is quite bare.
Trading Jack has opened up an extra five million dollars that they can use on free agency, to possibly find an upgrade at point guard and someone, anyone to play center. This was another very solid move by Dell Demps to improve the team’s future. It will be interesting to see how the team does with the extra cap space and to continue seeing how they build for their post-Chris Paul future.
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