The Charlotte Hornets have traded guard Josh Green to the Minnesota Timberwolves as part of a multi-player deal that also moved All-Star point guard LaMelo Ball to Minnesota. The package sent Green and Ball out of Charlotte in exchange for forward Naz Reid, while a collection of draft picks were exchanged as well. The transaction is one of the earliest major moves of the 2026 offseason, arriving less than 48 hours after the NBA draft wrapped up.
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Josh Green, the 6-foot-6 wing who spent one season with the Arizona Wildcats before entering the NBA, will join his third team in the league. The move sends Green from the Hornets to a Timberwolves roster that has added a high-profile playmaker in Ball; Green’s inclusion in the deal represents a notable reshuffling of perimeter pieces for both franchises involved.
Charlotte Hornets guard (No. 10) on the court in NBA uniform; the player was dealt to the Timberwolves in a move tied to a high-profile point-guard trade.
Green enters the offseason at a familiar crossroads in his career. A first-round selection of the Dallas Mavericks in 2021, he spent four seasons with Dallas before being moved to Charlotte in 2024 as part of a six-team transaction. The trade to Minnesota comes as Green is entering the final year of a three-year, $41 million contract. Over the course of last season in Charlotte, Green appeared in 58 games and averaged 4.3 points in 15.7 minutes per contest, converting 42 percent of his attempts from beyond the arc and shooting 89.3 percent from the free throw line.
During his time with Charlotte, Green came off the bench exclusively, a shift from an earlier period in his Hornets tenure when he was asked to start; across his first season with Charlotte he made 67 starts. His professional résumé also includes extended service with Dallas, where he logged 62 appearances overall, including 33 games during the 2023-24 regular season, and contributed in the postseason — scoring 14 points in Game 5 of the NBA Finals during that run.
Former Arizona Wildcats guard (No. 10) drives to the basket in a college game — the player was later included in a trade that sent him to the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Green’s path to the NBA began after one season at Arizona in the COVID-shortened 2019-20 campaign. In that lone collegiate season he averaged 12 points, 4.6 rebounds and 2.6 assists, numbers that helped him declare for the 2020 NBA Draft. He was one of three Wildcats selected in that draft class, joining Nico Mannion and Zeke Nnaji as Arizona players taken into the league that year. The move to Minnesota reunites Green with a new organization as he looks ahead to the final season on his current deal.
This trade arrives as the league pivots from draft activity to free agency and additional roster construction, with teams expected to continue pursuing roster moves into the summer. For Green, the switch to Minnesota marks a new chapter and the third stop of his seven-year professional timeline, while Charlotte receives frontcourt reinforcements and future assets in the form of Naz Reid and exchanged draft capital.
Teams, agents and players now turn their attention to the weeks ahead — free agency begins soon and more transactions are widely anticipated — but the deal that sends Green from Charlotte to Minnesota stands as one of the early, consequential shifts of the 2026 offseason.
ESPN's Bobby Marks noted that as a result of the trade, the Hornets now possess the second-most first-round draft picks league-wide and generated a $40.7 million trade exception—the largest in NBA history—affording them substantial roster-building flexibility moving forward.
Multiple outlets reporting on the deal say Charlotte will receive an unprotected 2033 first-round pick, three first-round pick swaps (2028, 2029 and 2030) and three future second-round picks (2029, 2032 and 2033) as part of the package from Minnesota.
People familiar with the situation say the trade is still subject to NBA approval and is linked to Minnesota’s earlier three-team maneuver that involved sending Julius Randle to the Brooklyn Nets.
LaMelo Ball reportedly has three years remaining on a five-year, $203.9 million designated rookie contract and averaged 20.1 points, 7.1 assists and 4.8 rebounds across 72 games last season.