The Charlotte Hornets kept wheeling and dealing over the weekend. After acquiring Buddy Hield and Ryan Nembhard in a trade, general manager Jeff Peterson kept doing the asset flip, sending Hield to the Bulls for Rob Dillingham.

Here’s the gist of why the deal was made:

Dillingham is a local kid. He grew up in Hickory, North Carolina and started his high school career in nearby Lincolnton. He was a five star recruit out of high school and spent one season at Kentucky. The Timberwolves traded a future first round pick and a future first round pick swap to get into position to select Dillingham with the eighth overall pick in the 2024 draft, but he never really cracked the regular rotation. He was traded to the Bulls as part of the Ayo Dosunmu trade, and he had a decent finish to the season for a tanking Bulls team.

All that said, I don’t think Dillingham is part of the final roster plans. This move seems to be more shuffling to create exceptions and the like. This has all been spawned out of the Hornets using their midlevel exception to absorb Dorian Finney-Smith’s salary from the Rockets. Bobby Marks summed it up:

So it’s not much in the grand scheme of things, but it shows that Peterson and company are going to stay working the phones to make whatever marginal deal they can to keep stockpiling assets and improving the roster on the margins.

UPDATE: The Hornets waived Dillingham.