One former Duke basketball player has already been included in a trade as Tre Jones was sent to the Chicago Bulls in a three-team deal with the Sacramento Kings and San Antonio Spurs that sent De'Aaron Fox to the Spurs and Zach Lavine to the Kings.
However, a couple more former Blue Devils are on the move ahead of the NBA trade deadline, which hits Thursday, February 6th at 3:00pm ET. And these deals went down during the late hours of last night as two of the freshest marquee trades getting done as the deadline comes to a close.
Charlotte Hornets center Mark Williams, who played two seasons at Duke from 2020-22, was the centerpiece of a deal with the Los Angeles Lakers that sent Williams to LA. Two former Blue Devil basketball players were actually traded for each other, as Cam Reddish is now on his way to Charlotte.
Full trade details per ESPN's Shams Charania:
Charlotte Hornets receive:
Dalton Knecht
Cam Reddish
2031 unprotected first round pick
2030 pick swap
Los Angeles Lakers receive:
Mark Williams
Williams has broken onto the scene this season as a legit center in the NBA after struggling with injuries for the majority of his first two seasons in the league.
Also read: Former Duke basketball player beginning to break out in third NBA season
Williams missed more games than he played through his first two seasons in the NBA, and even missed the first 20 games of the 2024-25 season with a left foot tendon strain he endured during fall training camp.
But since coming back, Williams has been dominant averaging 15.6 points, 9.6 rebounds, and 1.2 blocks a night on 58.6% shooting from the field. It looked like Williams was set to be the Hornets' center for the future after the franchise traded Nick Richards to the Phoenix Suns earlier this season, but instead he'll get a shot to compete for a championship with the Lakers.
One week ago, the Lakers were fighting for a playoff spot. Today, they look like a true NBA championship contender in the West after acquiring Luka Dončić from Dallas in exchange for Anthony Davis, and shortly after fixing the newly opened up hole at the center position by trading for Williams.
Davis had said before he was traded that he didn't want to play center, and the Lakers have now turned him into a star in Dončić, and expect Williams to be their new center for a long time as Williams is still just 23 years old. The Lakers are clearly putting faith in Williams to be reliable even with his injury history, as LA gave up their promising rookie Knecht and a first round pick to acquire the big man.
But Williams wasn't the only Blue Devil that served as a gem of a trade overnight, as Brandon Ingram was shipped from the New Orleans Pelicans to the Toronto Raptors.
Full trade details per ESPN's Shams Charania:
New Orleans Pelicans receive:
Bruce Brown Jr.
Kelly Olynyk
first round pick
second round pick
Toronto Raptors receive:
Brandon Ingram
This trade was long overdue, as Ingram has been in trade deadline talks to be shipped out of New Orleans for the last two or three seasons. Ingram is in the final year of a five-year, $158 million deal with the Pelicans, and it's been known for multiple seasons that New Orleans didn't want to sign him to another big contract.
Ingram is set to earn $36 million this year before becoming an unrestricted free agent, and this looks like the first action for New Orleans completely blowing things up. The Pelicans currently sit with a 12-39 record, good for the second-worst record in the NBA, and are in the midst of a complete disaster of a season.
Now Ingram, a career 19.5 point per game scorer, will get a change of scenery alongside star Scottie Barnes and former Duke basketball player RJ Barrett in Toronto.