Wait, you can undo a trade in the NBA?
Yes, actually, you can. Boom, Ctrl-Z. Just like that.
It rarely happens, for fairly obvious reasons. Execs are not going to spend all this time negotiating a deal (you have no idea how excruciating it can be to get from the 5-yard line to the end zone on these) and then just go “Psyche!” three days later.
But every so often, it happens. The Lakers’ unwinding of their trade deadline swap for Mark Williams is the latest, rare example of a team exiting a trade because of a failed physical.
Late Wednesday night, L.A. had agreed to send Dalton Knecht, Cam Reddish, a 2030 pick swap and a 2031 first-round pick to Charlotte for Williams ahead of Thursday’s trade deadline. By Saturday, when Williams wasn’t yet active for the Lakers’ game against Indiana, it was obvious something might be up. Later that evening, the Lakers canceled the trade.
Here’s the deal: In the NBA a trade isn’t complete until both teams sign off that the players have reported to their new teams and completed and passed their physicals. Teams often agree to waive this requirement for salary-dump trades where the players are secondary to the accounting, but never for a basketball-driven move like this one.
The NBA’s collective bargaining agreement (CBA) gives players 48 hours to report and submit to a physical. Then the team has another 24 hours to approve the physical. That time can also be extended by agreement of all sides in the trade. However, time is usually of the essence in trades, as none of the players in the deal can participate in a game until all of them pass.
So what do we mean by “pass,” exactly? Well, we’re getting into murky territory. This is an important and underrated point: Technically, a team can fail a player’s physical for any reason at all. A hangnail. A droopy eyelid. Halitosis. Anything.
Thus, in past instances where this has happened, many around the league have wondered if “cold feet” was the actual medical issue, rather than a newly discovered physical problem with the player. If we’re being very technical, in fact, flunking the physical is an act of omission and not an act of commission — the team is simply failing to approve the final step on the trade, and thus preventing its completion.
Actually, this was not the first instance of a physical resulting in a trade alteration at the 2025 deadline. The difference, however, is that the other instance still ended with a trade going through: Philadelphia agreed to send Dallas a future second-round pick in addition to their previously negotiated trade, when the Mavs felt Caleb Martin’s hip injury was worse than they originally believed.
The Lakers and Hornets didn’t have that option, however, because after the 3 p.m. EST Thursday trade deadline, no trade modifications are allowed. In contrast, Dallas and Philly had agreed to their deal on Tuesday and completed Martin’s physical early enough that they could renegotiate terms just before the deadline buzzer.
That policy is one of the hidden risks of last-minute shopping: The Lakers’ only option was to either complete the trade as agreed, or blow it up. As I noted above, whether they unwound the trade because they didn’t like the imaging on Williams’ knee or just didn’t like the defensive clips that people were posting on social media, is almost irrelevant. The end-game is the same: An incredible sliding-doors moment.
What would the Lakers have done this season with Williams? What would their future be like? While this type of speculation is possible with any player-team combo, this one feels more real because they had an agreed-upon trade. We will always have that parallel comparison point over the next few years.
And because of that, it evokes memories of two other great sliding doors moments in NBA history that involve flunked physicals: Tyson Chandler and Sean Elliott.
At the 2009 deadline, the Oklahoma City Thunder had a deal ready to go that would send Chris Wilcox, Joe Smith and the draft rights to DeVon Hardin to New Orleans for Tyson Chandler. However, the Thunder rescinded the deal due to concerns with Chandler’s toe.
Whatever the issue was with the toe, he went on to play 11 more seasons, and started at center for the Dallas team that beat the Thunder in the 2011 Western Conference finals en route to the championship. Meanwhile, those Oklahoma City teams never found the answer at center — trading for Kendrick Perkins and supplementing him with other fringe rotation players until drafting Steven Adams in 2014. Can you imagine if they’d had Chandler running with Russell Westbrook, James Harden, Kevin Durant and Serge Ibaka?
Going further in the way-back machine, in February 1994, the Houston Rockets and Detroit Pistons had a deal ready to go that would send Sean Elliott to the Rockets for forwards Robert Horry and Matt Bullard and two second-rounders.
Elliott flunked his physical in Houston because of a kidney condition that eventually required a transplant, although he played seven more seasons, made the 1996 All-Star team and started for the Spurs championship team in 1999.
Horry, meanwhile, started on the Rockets’ champions in 1994 and 1995 and, ironically, also ended up winning two rings in San Antonio. This one is fascinating to ponder because it impacts so many champions of that era, including the three Lakers champions Horry played on from 2000 to 2002. Do any of his seven championships happen if he goes to the Pistons in 1994? Does Horry’s presence swing the 2005 finals that the Spurs won over Detroit in seven?
Will the Williams non-deal fall into that category … or will it be more along the lines of the Donatas Motiejūnas trade between Houston and Detroit that was rescinded in 2015? (Yeah, not a lot of long-term reverberations from that one.) Only time will tell.
For now, Williams goes back to Charlotte, and Knecht and Reddish go back to L.A., each knowing their team tried to trade them. Awkwaaaaard. The Lakers also get their picks back and, perhaps, a chance to do something a bit more emphatic with them in the offseason.
Theoretically, they could even trade for Williams again this summer on different terms, although I’m not sure the Hornets will be returning their calls. (One of the ancillary costs of nuking a trade is that other teams become less willing to do business with you, especially the one you just burned.)
In the short term, L.A. is left high and dry in the middle, which is why it dealt for Williams in the first place. (And why the Lakers likely thought long and hard before rescinding it.) They have to go through the rest of the current season with a replacement-level combo of Jaxson Hayes and Christian Wood as their centers, which seems suboptimal. The Lakers might find a big man in the buyout market, but the trade also put them back to 15 players, so the Lakers will need to waive somebody. Also, this year’s buyout market seems pretty dry at the center spot.
Charlotte, meanwhile, now faces the prospect of either extending Williams this summer or once again turning to the trade market. Any deal with him is complicated by the fact that the Lakers flunked his physical, which combined with Williams’ injury history will make other partners skittish.
All because of an odd, little-used provision of the NBA trade rules that allows teams to zap a trade, just like that.
θα σου θυμίσω ότι πέρυσι μετά τους τελικούς της Δύσης με τους Timberwolves, στα αποδυτήρια των Mavs εν' ώρα πανηγυρισμών μπήκε ο Finley - παλιός παίκτης της ομάδας και διοικητικός πλέον. Στις χαιρετούρες/αγκαλιές με την ομάδα, πήρε από το χέρι του Σλοβένου το κουτάκι μπύρα που έπινε. Αν ανοίξουμε αυτή τη συζήτηση, νομίζω πως τελειωμό δε θα έχουμε. Ακόμη και αυτό δείχνει πρόβλημα, αν θες τη γνώμη μου και από τις δύο πλευρές.
Εκτος και ειναι στους ανωνυμους αλκοολικους ο λουκα και το κρατανε κρυφο..
