Charlotte Hornets waive Kai Jones following trade request per report

The Charlotte Hornets decided on Wednesday evening that they’d finally seen enough from their former first round pick, Kai Jones. The franchise decided to waive him on Wednesday evening, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic. He was waived following an offseason that was full of drama.

Jones thought it was a great idea to rip his own teammates on Instagram. At the end of September, the Charlotte Hornets decided to keep their 2021 first-round pick away from the team with no timetable for his return. He missed training camp due to personal reasons and even publicly demanded a trade recently.

The former Texas standout posterized Victor Wembanyama in the teams’ first matchup at this year’s NBA Summer League.

Jones caught Wembanyama lacking as he was guarding a pick-and-roll. Before the 7-foot-5 standout could blink, he was in Jones’ shadow. The baptizing slam threw Wembanyama into the baseline press, falling over like a freshly-born giraffe.

To make matters worse, the highlight play happened while Spurs general manager Brian Jones talked with ESPN’s commentary team. He wasn’t talking for long after the dunk.

Jones hasn’t exactly been a human highlight reel at a professional level. The Bahamas native has averaged just 3.4 points and 2.7 rebounds per game in his young NBA career. On the bright side, Jones’ minutes significantly increased from three to 12 minutes a game last year.

It’s also important to note offense isn’t Jones’ specialty, and it never has been. While at Texas, Jones averaged a mere averaged 3.6 points and 3.2 rebounds in 16.7 minutes per game. Yet, he led the team with 30 blocked shots. Against Oklahoma State on January 15th, he swatted a career-high five blocks in 16 minutes of work.

Jones must hope that he can carve out a similar role as a shot blocker on another team in the NBA in the future. But there’s no question that his recent antics with the Hornets will likely make that more difficult.

He played his high school basketball at Brewster Academy in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. Jones helped guide them to a 34-7 overall record and the 2019 National Prep Championship. He averaged 10 points, six rebounds, and two blocks per game, while hitting 41% of his threes his senior year.

As a junior in high school, Jones attended Orlando Prep Christian (Orlando, Florida), guiding his team to a 21-9 mark and a Class 3A state title.

On3’s Grant Grubbs also contributed to this article.