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Jan 24, 2024; Detroit, Michigan, USA; Charlotte Hornets guard Nick Smith Jr. (8) shoots in the second half against the Detroit Piston at Little Caesars Arena. Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-Imagn Images Rick Osentoski-Imagn Images

Charlotte's waiving of Nick Smith Jr. puts a bow on Hornets' disastrous 2022 NBA Draft night trade

Originally posted on Charlotte Hornets on SI
By Matt Alquiza | Last updated Sep 26, 2025 11:21 AM ET

The 2021 and 2022 NBA Drafts are major inflection points in the last decade of Charlotte Hornets basketball.

After selecting LaMelo Ball in the 2020 Draft and signing Gordon Hayward soon after, Charlotte was clearly on an upward trajectory. The Hornets' core of Ball, Hayward, Terry Rozier, Miles Bridges, and PJ Washington was intriguing enough to dream of playoff basketball in the Queen City, and their best chance at supplementing that talent would come in the draft.

In 2021, Charlotte swung and missed.

They selected two high-ceiling, low-floor prospects in James Bouknight and Kai Jones just for the pair to be out of the NBA mere years later.

Although Bouknight and Jones failed to make an impact in their rookie year, the Hornets continued to improve. Behind Ball, Rozier, and Bridges' high-flying swagger, Charlotte finished the season above .500 and earned a berth in the Play-In tournament.

They entered the 2022 Draft armed with a pair of first round picks (13 and 15 overall) with another chance to add talent to their burgeoning young core.

Two more swings. Two more misses.

With the 15th overall pick, Charlotte selected Mark Williams; the occasionally brilliant, oft-injured big man who was shipped off to Phoenix this summer for Vasilije Micic, the draft pick that turned into Liam McNeeley, and a 2029 first-round pick.

Before that, though, they selected Jalen Duren at #13 who was traded to Detroit in a three-team draft night deal that netted Charlotte this haul: Denver's 2023 first-round pick, New York's 2023 second-round pick, Utah's 2023 second-round pick, Dallas' 2023 second-round pick, and New York's 2024 second-round pick.

Detroit is the clear winner of this trade

At the time, fans questioned Charlotte's process.

Why would the Hornets trade a lottery pick for a quartet of second-round picks and a first-round selection from the Nuggets who were in the midst of their ascension into an NBA power behind future MVP Nikola Jokic? Mitch Kupchak traded the guarantee of the 13th overall selection for the hope of a Rocky Mountain collapse and a bevy of low-upside lottery tickets.

Those lottery tickets predictably flamed out and Denver wound up winning an NBA title in 2023, leaving Charlotte with the 27th pick in that draft, the pick the became Nick Smith Jr.

Fast-forward a few years, and it's clear that the haters at the time were right and Pistons are the big winners of this trade.

As of Thursday evening, Nick Smith Jr. is no longer a Charlotte Hornet. The jitterbug point guard's one-dimensional, score-first style didn't jibe with Jeff Peterson and Charles Lee's vision, so they allowed him the opportunity to latch on with another NBA franchise on the brink of training camp after two years in Buzz City.

In Motor City, Jalen Duren is coming off his second straight campaign averaging a double-double, solidifying his status as a centerpiece in Detroit's impressive rebuild.

When the trade was made, Charlotte was a team on the rise: a young, talented squad taking on the persona of their creative head coach that was ready to make a major leap up the Eastern Conference's standings behind their one-of-one point guard whereas Detroit was an Eastern Conference also-ran in the middle of a regime change without a true direction.

Oh, how the tables have turned. On the eve of the 2025-26 season, the Pistons are an up-and-coming Eastern Conference power with Duren at the heart of their attack while the Hornets are still in asset accumulation mode, attempting to figure out how they can make that Pistons-sized jump in the coming years.

Jeff Peterson has proven adept at winning deals, but it's going to take a few more savvy trades to dig his Hornets out of the hole that previous regimes dug.