Trae Young trade: Hawks send All-Star guard to Wizards in first blockbuster of NBA season, per report
CJ McCollum and Corey Kispert are heading to Atlanta and no draft picks are changing hands
By
Sam Quinn
•
2 min read
The Atlanta Hawks are trading Trae Young to the Washington Wizards, according to ESPN. The Wizards will send CJ McCollum and Corey Kispert to Atlanta in the deal. There is reportedly no draft compensation in the deal. The trade marks the end of Young's seven-plus-season tenure with the Hawks. The man who drafted him for the Hawks, Travis Schlenk, is currently the vice president of player personnel for the Wizards, so the two will now reunite in Washington and attempt to finish what they started in Atlanta.
Young's tenure with the Hawks began with quite a bit of promise. In just his third NBA season, Young led the Hawks to the 2021 Eastern Conference finals, and had he not been hurt in the series, Atlanta might have gone even further. He's made four All-Star Games as a Hawk, including last season, and even earned All-NBA honors in 2022, establishing himself as Atlanta's franchise player for the better part of the past decade.
But a few things have changed of late that conspired to push Young toward a trade. Atlanta's front office has turned over multiple times during Young's career, with the current group led by Onsi Saleh taking over last offseason. He was on his third permanent head coach in Atlanta as well, with Quin Snyder taking the job in 2023. That meant that many of the decision-makers that built around him early in his career were gone.
This season, the Hawks underperformed with Young on the floor. Meanwhile, when he sat, the Hawks shared the ball, played faster and, more importantly, played better defense than they ever had with the small, often indifferent defensively Young. This is indicative of a league-wide shift. The NBA is simply less interested in small, defensively-deficient guards that can't shoot well enough to play off of the ball than it used to, as characterized by the seemingly limited trade interest Ja Morant has drawn this season well. Such players can still have a place on competitive teams, but not at max salaries.
Atlanta was staring down the barrel of a $49 million player option for Young next season that would have deprived them of significant flexibility to build around their younger cornerstones. By moving Young now, they set themselves up to either generate significant cap space in the summer or use that flexibility to trade for another veteran like Anthony Davis now.
Trae Young trade rumors: Why a Hawks-Wizards deal would make sense for both sides
Sam Quinn
The Wizards, with nearly limitless cap flexibility on a roster devoid of expensive veterans, had no such issues with Young's cap figure. They could afford to take a buy-low risk on Young with the idea that he could help develop their raw, younger players. As talented as many of their recent first-round picks are, having a traditional point guard on board to set them up will only make their lives easier. Now the Wizards, who have not reached the playoffs since 2021, have taken their first true steps out of the lottery and toward competing for the postseason.
