The Lakers are trading center Deandre Ayton to the Wizards, sources tell ESPN’s Shams Charania (Twitter link).
According to Charania, Washington will send guard Jaden Hardy, a 2031 second-round pick, and a 2032 second-round pick to Los Angeles in exchange for Ayton.
The first overall pick in the 2018 draft, Ayton signed with the Lakers last summer after being bought out by Portland and spent the 2025/26 season atop the team’s depth chart at the five, starting 72 regular season games and all 10 of Los Angeles’ playoff contests.
However, he had an up-and-down year, setting new career lows in points (12.5), rebounds (8.0), and minutes (27.2) per game in his eighth NBA season. An offensive-minded player earlier in his career, Ayton struggled to adjust to the role the Lakers wanted him to play, which involved focusing on setting screens, defending, and rebounding.
The big man eventually bought into that role and exercised his $8.1MM player option for 2026/27, but the Lakers made it a priority this summer to find a new starting center and struck a deal with Utah to acquire Walker Kessler via sign-and-trade on a four-year, $130MM contract.
While they could’ve retained Ayton as Kessler’s backup, the Lakers plan to address that spot on the free agent market, according to Charania (Twitter link), who identifies Andre Drummond, Kevon Looney, and Jonas Valanciunas as possibilities. Valanciunas is still under contract with Denver but appears highly likely to be waived, since only $2MM of his $10MM salary for 2026/27 is guaranteed.
The trade will help the Lakers restock their draft assets to some extent. After the Kessler trade, the team had no draft picks left to trade besides its own 2033 second-rounder. Swapping out Ayton’s $8.1MM cap hit for Hardy’s $6MM figure will also create the extra wiggle room necessary to accommodate the reported terms on the deals for Kessler, Quentin Grimes, and Sandro Mamukelashvili using cap room, tweets Yossi Gozlan of The Third Apron.
Hardy, who will turn 24 on Sunday, has just one guaranteed year left on his contract, with a $6MM team option for 2027/28. The 6’3″ guard played a pretty modest role for Dallas and Washington last season, but scored effectively in his limited minutes, averaging 9.2 PPG in 15.8 MPG, and he’s a career 38.6% three-point shooter.
As for the Wizards, Anthony Davis, Alex Sarr, and Tristan Vukcevic had been the only real big men on their roster, so Ayton will added some much-needed depth in the frontcourt, which should allow Davis to spend more time at the four.
As ESPN’s Bobby Marks points out (via Twitter), the Wizards may decide to absorb Ayton’s $8.1MM salary into a $13.4MM trade exception that expires next Thursday. That would allow them to generate a new $6MM trade exception equivalent to Hardy’s outgoing salary.
