Charles Lee Gives Grant Williams Injury Update After Swarm Practice

Grant Williams spent Wednesday practicing in Greensboro with the Swarm, Charlotte's G League affiliate. The team recalled him that evening, and on Friday the Charlotte Hornets listed him out again with a right hamstring strain, his 10th straight absence to open the season, as the Boston Celtics came to Spectrum Center.

He has not played in a game since Charlotte's season-ending play-in loss to Orlando in April.

“Grant participated with the Swarm and got some contact in,” Hornets coach Charles Lee said. “Sounds like he responded well from that. He still has some boxes to check from a physical contact perspective, but he’s trending in the right direction.”

The Hornets announced the strain Sept. 25 in the same release that disclosed Kon Knueppel's left hamstring injury. Both had been hurt in offseason on-court work, and the team said both would miss all four preseason games before a re-evaluation in the first week of the regular season.

Williams was ruled out for the Oct. 21 opener at Brooklyn. He has been listed out for every game since, and on Oct. 26, Rod Boone of The Charlotte Observer reported that Williams would be checked again after a two-game trip to Detroit and Washington.

Charlotte's frontcourt includes Naz Reid and Royce O'Neale, both acquired in June trades that sent LaMelo Ball to Minnesota and Miles Bridges to Phoenix.

“Our depth is ridiculous,” Williams said on the No Dunks YouTube channel before camp. “I was talking to one of our coaches the other day, just looking at the talent on the roster and the ability to shoot the ball, I think we have a great chance to surprise a lot of people. We did lose two important players in LaMelo Ball and Miles Bridges, guys who are gonna make huge impacts on the teams they’re about to play on.”

“But replacing them with the players and the character of the guys we have coming in, I think the guys already here are gonna take a huge step,” Williams continued. “Kon Knueppel, Brandon Miller, Coby White even, from what you saw in a bench role last year and as a starter in Chicago. On top of that, I think the group is gonna really get along. That synergy is gonna bring a lot of competitive joy out. This Hornets team is gonna be very fun to watch, and it’s gonna be hyper competitive.”

Last season, Williams did not play until Jan. 10. He had torn the ACL, meniscus, and other ligaments in his right knee at Milwaukee on Nov. 23, 2024, and had surgery in Chicago that Dec. 11.

Once back, he started three of his 36 games and averaged 7.0 points, 3.9 rebounds, and 1.6 assists on 42.6% shooting.

Hamstring trouble is not new for him in Charlotte, either. He sat out the 2024 preseason opener after Lee said he had tweaked a hamstring.

Over seven seasons with Boston, Dallas, and Charlotte, Williams has averaged 7.2 points and 3.7 rebounds in 416 games, 111 of them starts. Boston drafted him 22nd overall out of Tennessee in 2019, and he spent four seasons there before a 2023 sign-and-trade sent him to Dallas on a four-year, $53,341,500 contract.

The Dallas Mavericks moved the Charlotte native home in February 2024 in the P.J. Washington trade. The contract pays him $14,265,750 in its final season.

Williams is one of four Hornets out Friday, along with Knueppel, Dennis Schröder, and Moussa Diabaté. Schröder and Diabaté moved from questionable to out on the 5 p.m. ET report.

Lee spent the 2023-24 season as an assistant on Boston's championship staff.

“A man that I worked for before in Boston, he’d always say, ‘Nobody cares,’ and nobody cares if you have injuries, and you just gotta keep trucking and keep competing,” Lee explained. “We know what our identity is, and we got players that gotta play to that identity and to those standards.”

The Hornets, losers of five straight, host the Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday at 7 p.m. ET.