{"id":910503,"date":"2026-07-03T20:02:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T20:02:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/910503\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T20:02:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T20:02:16","slug":"lakers-trade-deandre-ayton-to-the-wizards-for-jaden-hardy-draft-picks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/910503\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakers trade Deandre Ayton to the Wizards for Jaden Hardy, draft picks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Lakers<\/a> have traded 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 on the matter confirmed to The Times on Friday.<\/p>\n

Ayton picked up his player option for $8.1 million on Sunday.<\/p>\n

But it became obvious that he was expendable as the starting center once the Lakers acquired 24-year-old center Walker Kessle<\/a>r from the Utah Jazz in a sign-and-trade deal worth four years and $130 million.<\/p>\n

The Lakers now will be in the market for a backup center.<\/p>\n

Centers like Andre Drummond, Jonas Valanciunas and Kevon Looney are still available. Drummond played 21 games for the Lakers during the 2020-21 season, when he was picked up on the buyout market.<\/p>\n

The Lakers acquired Ayton last season<\/a> after the Portland Trail Blazers bought out his contract, and then signed him to a two-year, $16-million deal.<\/p>\n

He averaged 12.5 points and 8.0 rebounds in 72 games last season with the Lakers while shooting 67.1% from the field.<\/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 getting traded in February to Washington, 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 have traded center Deandre Ayton to the Washington Wizards for guard Jaden Hardy and two second-round…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":910504,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[156835,368225,22723,1582,276,3853,3372,301215,2091,23298,29734,2961,8604,224,2444,5337,9106,449,3117,23885],"class_list":["post-910503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-andre-drummond","tag-ayton-last-season","tag-backup-center","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-deal","tag-deandre-ayton","tag-draft-pick","tag-field","tag-jaden-hardy","tag-jonas-valanciunas","tag-la","tag-lakers","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-losangeles","tag-market","tag-point","tag-washington-wizards","tag-wizards"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116857834484124634","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/910503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=910503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/910503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/910504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=910503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=910503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=910503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}