Both Sides of the Trade Win Opening Night
Swapped for each other in June, LaMelo Ball and Naz Reid both delivered for their new teams on the season's second night.
Hornets 110, Nets 103 · Timberwolves 131, Heat 106.
THE MOMENT
Brooklyn, 38.7 seconds left, and the Nets had one more run in them. Julius Randle's three-point play had cut Charlotte's lead to six, the building was finally loud, and a young Hornets team was one bad possession from opening the season the way young Hornets teams used to open seasons.
Grayson Allen ended it. One clean look, one three, and Charlotte closed the night 110-103.
Allen was not supposed to be the story of Charlotte's opener. He arrived in the summer shuffle almost as a footnote, in the deal that sent Miles Bridges to Phoenix. But on a night when the Hornets played without Coby White and Kon Knueppel, last season's league leader in made threes, the footnote made five threes of his own and scored a team-high 21 off the bench.
And at almost the same hour in Miami, the most famous name in that summer's shuffle was making sure nobody in Charlotte could feel too smug about it.
THE FREEZE
Opening night is supposed to tell you what a trade cost you. Wednesday told two franchises the opposite story.
THE HUMAN
Understand what was actually exchanged in June. In a four-team deal, Charlotte sent LaMelo Ball, six years the face of the franchise, the most gifted passer the Hornets have ever employed, to Minnesota. Coming back the other way, among a mountain of draft picks, was Naz Reid.
The two men could not be more different as basketball stories. Ball was the show: a No. 3 pick, a star before he was old enough to rent a car, and then, for three seasons, a rumor, he played 43 percent of Charlotte's games from 2022 to 2025, his ankles writing his availability report. Reid was the grind: undrafted out of LSU, seven seasons in Minnesota, a fan favorite who carved himself into the league's Sixth Man of the Year in 2024 without ever being handed a starting job.
Charlotte did not trade Ball because Ball was not good. It traded him because a franchise cannot build its calendar around a maybe. Minnesota did not trade Reid because Reid had failed. It traded him because Anthony Edwards, tired of being double-teamed into exhaustion since the Karl-Anthony Towns trade, needed a second creator, and Reid, beloved as he was, was never going to be that.
Wednesday night, both men started for their new teams. And both men played like the trade was a compliment.
THE SACRIFICE
Read the ledgers, because both franchises paid real prices. Charlotte surrendered the most talented player in the deal and the center of its marketing universe, and took back a 2033 unprotected first-round pick, three first-round swaps and three second-rounders, a bet that availability today and assets tomorrow outweigh brilliance that cannot stay on the floor. Ball surrendered the only NBA home he ever knew, and a city's patience that had finally turned into applause during last season's healthy 72 games and a play-in run. Reid surrendered seven years of belonging and a defined role on a contender, for the risk of being asked to be more.
Minnesota's price is measured in trust: the Timberwolves have handed their franchise player's prime a partner whose body has betrayed him before. If Ball's ankles hold, Wednesday is a preview. If they do not, Wednesday is the highlight.
That is what a real trade looks like. Everybody gives up something that hurts.
THE RECEIPT
- Both sides of the Ball-Reid trade
- Allen's dagger in Brooklyn
- Edwards 45, Ball's Wolves debut
SCOREBOARD
Charlotte 110, Brooklyn 103, at Barclays Center, a road win, earned the hard way. Reid, starting at last, gave the Hornets 20 points, 11 rebounds and 7 assists, a near triple-double, and Charlotte owned the second-chance battle 20-8. Brandon Miller scored 18 on his new contract extension, 12 of them in a first quarter that set the tone. Moussa Diabaté was everywhere: 17 points, 8 rebounds, 5 steals. Dennis Schröder, debuting for his 12th NBA team in White's place, scored 8 straight points in a 10-2 fourth-quarter run that bought the cushion Allen's dagger later protected.
NOTE 1
Brooklyn got 33 from Julius Randle in his Nets debut and 26 from Michael Porter Jr., whose four-point play briefly gave the Nets the lead in the third. Only two Nets reached double figures. That was the difference wearing a name tag.
NOTE 2
In Miami, Minnesota 131, Heat 106, and it was not that close for long. Edwards scored 45 with 10 rebounds and nine threes, joining Wilt Chamberlain and Michael Jordan as the only players ever with 40 or more in multiple season openers. Ball, in his Timberwolves debut, scored 21 with 6 assists, his first basket a three launched from near the midcourt logo, because of course it was. A 23-7 run across the halftime break broke the game open, and Minnesota outscored Miami 63-24 from behind the arc.
NOTE 3
Miami's own debutant, Giannis Antetokounmpo, scored 35 in his first game since the June blockbuster that brought him from Milwaukee, heard MVP chants early, and fouled out in the fourth quarter of a 25-point loss. Even giants need more than one night.
THE VOICES
It felt great being with the brothers, and obviously we won, so great night.
At this point, me and him are going to be like best friends.
To me, he's the best point guard in the NBA.
He can generate good looks for your team as well as anybody in this league.
Ball, asked about his debut in new colors, kept it in the language of the locker room:
"It felt great being with the brothers, and obviously we won, so great night."
Edwards, courtside after the game, was already past chemistry and into commitment:
"At this point, me and him are going to be like best friends."
The losing coach may have said it best. Miami's Erik Spoelstra, who had just watched Ball carve his defense for three quarters:
"He can generate good looks for your team as well as anybody in this league."
And then Edwards delivered the sentence Minnesota's whole winter will be judged against:
"To me, he's the best point guard in the NBA."
THE TAKE
FINAL VERDICTTrades usually get autopsied for years, each side's fans keeping the other's failures in a drawer. This one deserves a different first draft: on the season's second night, both front offices looked right at the same time, which almost never happens and means the deal was honest, need traded for need, risk admitted on both sides of the paperwork.
Charlotte did not get worse on Wednesday; it got sturdier, a starting big who nearly triple-doubled, a sniper it did not know it had, a defense that travels. Minnesota did not get reckless; it got relief, 45 points from a superstar who, for the first time in years, did not have to carry every possession alone.
There is a lesson in it that travels well beyond basketball. Sometimes the problem was never the talent, the effort or the love. Sometimes it is simply the fit, and the bravest thing two people, or two franchises, can do is admit it, shake hands, and let everybody go be great somewhere they are built to last.
Ask LaMelo Ball. Ask Naz Reid. Wednesday night, both of them looked like men who had been set down in exactly the right place.
Andre D. Williams
More than the final score. DRE'S TAKE: the story behind the performance.
Credits: Quotes, LaMelo Ball, Anthony Edwards, and Erik Spoelstra via Associated Press (Alanis Thames) / TSN and Sportsnet. Scores and lines via Reuters/Field Level Media, Sportradar, NBC Sports, and Rookie Wire. Ball-Reid four-team trade details via ESPN (Shams Charania), AP, and SI. Giannis to Miami via AP/TSN. Grayson Allen acquisition via Reuters.
Share
Related stories
See all →
The DRE'S TAKE Newsletter
More than the final score.
Get the stories, interviews, and perspectives behind the performance.