Hawks To Consider Trae Young Trade In Offseason?

February 12, 2024

Trading star guard Trae Young? If you’re the Atlanta Hawks, it sounds like a bad idea. After all, Young has been their Mr. Everything for the past five-plus seasons.

Still, the Hawks have put forth another uneven season and things will likely need to change for it to get better. It’s just hard to know how far the Hawks will go when it comes to those changes.

Per Marc Stein of The Stein Line, the Hawks would be more likely to move guard Dejounte Murray than Young. But Young may not entirely be out of the question.

“I can tell you this much: They’ve certainly convinced various rival teams that a Dejounte In/Trae Out course is going to be legitimately considered,” Stein wrote.

“The Hawks, to be clear, have not made a firm decision yet. This isn’t the time to lock into such a lane with 29 games left in Atlanta’s season and a trip to the Play-In round, at the very least, more than within reach. How the rest of the season plays out is obviously going to factor into those next steps.”

In other words, if the Hawks should fall flat at the end of the season, you can bet GM Landry Fields will consider a whole world of possibilities. Atlanta hired Fields, who hired coach Quin Snyder, last season. And it’s just been more of the same since the team reached the Eastern Conference Finals in 2021.

When that’s the case, you consider all possibilities. That may include trading your franchise player.

Per Stein, the San Antonio Spurs and Los Angeles Lakers are two teams to watch when it comes to Young and/or Murray.

“San Antonio tops the perceived list,” Stein wrote. “The Spurs have circulated for months among prominent league observers as a viable destination for Young’s offensive gifts. In Victor Wembanyama, they also seemingly possess precisely the sort of long and rangy defensive anchor who could mitigate Young’s defensive deficiencies. It is likewise believed in some corners of the league that Young would have interest in South Texas as a destination if he were forced to leave Atlanta.”