Michael Jordan Made Surprise Call to Hornets During Major Trade Talks

Michael Jordan called Hornets president of basketball operations Jeff Peterson this summer while the Charlotte Hornets were finishing a trade that sent Miles Bridges to the Phoenix Suns. Jordan, the team’s former majority owner, wanted to make sure Peterson was not moving Brandon Miller too, sources told Zach Lowe of The Lowe Post in a story published Wednesday.

Peterson assured him Miller wasn’t going anywhere.

In July, at a news conference during the Las Vegas Summer League, Peterson said he had already talked with Miller and Miller’s representatives about an extension.

“They know that we want Brandon here for a very, very long time,” Peterson said.

Miller was rehabbing then from surgery in early May on his left shoulder. A few weeks earlier, on June 25, Peterson had brought Miller and Kon Knueppel into the team’s offices at Spectrum Center to tell them LaMelo Ball was gone. Ball and Josh Green were headed to the Minnesota Timberwolves for Naz Reid and a haul of picks and swaps. The deal was done but had not been announced.

Miller had seen Ball earlier that day.

“It was no surprise to me,” Miller told The Lowe Post.

Bridges was moved days later. He went to Phoenix with a 2029 first-round pick and a 2027 second-rounder, while Grayson Allen, Royce O’Neale, and the Suns’ unprotected 2033 first came back. Bridges had been a Hornet since draft night in 2018, when the Los Angeles Clippers took him 12th and sent him over.

Near the end of the 2024-25 season, about 14 months before that phone call, Miller was called into a meeting with Peterson, Hornets coach Charles Lee, Hornets assistant Josh Longstaff, and Jordan.

His second season had ended after 27 games. Miller had surgery to repair a torn scapholunate ligament in his right wrist.

Of Charlotte’s assistants, Longstaff spends the most time with Miller. Over the rest of that rehab, the Hornets had Miller shadow coaches through their daily routines and sit in as they watched film to scout opponents, Longstaff told Lowe. He got the same look at the front office, meetings included.

Charlotte drafted Miller second overall out of Alabama on June 22, 2023, six days after Jordan agreed to sell his majority stake to a group led by Gabe Plotkin and Rick Schnall. Scoot Henderson went third to Portland. The sale did not close until August.

Charlotte and Miller agreed to terms a little more than an hour before the Oct. 19 deadline for rookie-scale extensions. Peterson, sitting alongside Miller and Lee at a news conference on Oct. 22, said the negotiation ran “probably a little bit longer than Brandon and I wanted.”

Five years and $209 million, starting in 2027-28 and running through 2031-32. Ball’s extension with the Hornets in 2023 was five years and $203 million.

When he agreed to it, Miller had played 166 games in three seasons. He averaged 20.2 points, 4.9 rebounds, and 3.3 assists in 65 of them last season, with the shoulder bothering him from the early weeks on. He was one of 13 players to average at least 3.0 made 3-pointers per game. His 89.2% from the line ranked ninth in the league.

Charlotte went 33-15 after Jan. 2 last season, with the NBA’s best point differential over that span. Orlando beat the Hornets in the play-in tournament.

A week after the deal, Miller scored 39 on 15-of-28 shooting in a 110-103 win over the Washington Wizards at Spectrum Center. He had 27 of those in the second and third quarters. His old career high was 38, set against the Detroit Pistons on Nov. 21, 2024.

He also made his 500th career 3-pointer that night, in his 170th game. NBA.com listed only one player in league history as getting there faster.

Two nights later, he put up 31 points and 12 rebounds in a loss at Detroit. Then 19 in a 95-79 loss at Washington.

Charlotte has lost four straight since the Wizards win, most recently 124-91 at home to Detroit on Monday, and is 3-5. The Hornets play the Brooklyn Nets (1-6) at Barclays Center at 7:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday.