Hawks To Reset Roster Around Trae Young?

The Atlanta Hawks pulled off the first major deal of the offseason, sending guard Dejounte Murray to the New Orleans Pelicans.

So what awaits the Hawks today? It could be a whole lot more of star guard Trae Young, also repeatedly mentioned in trade rumors over the past three months or so.

Specifically, Young has been linked to the San Antonio Spurs and Los Angeles Lakers. But a recent report suggested the Lakers are highly unlikely to make a play for Young.

The Spurs, however, could try to figure out a way to land him. They are believed to be seeking a veteran point guard to pair with Victor Wembanyama, after all.

Interestingly, it was the Spurs who sent Murray to the Hawks two years ago. That deal never worked out for Atlanta. It was actually sort of a basketball disaster — though no fault of Murray. But the Hawks advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals with just Young. They made the Murray trade and got stuck spinning their wheels.

Anyway, back to Young, and the Spurs’ potential interest, written about by John Hollinger of The Athletic.

“No discussion of Atlanta’s plight is complete without discussing the nuclear option: Trading Young to San Antonio and getting those picks back, which would allow Atlanta to move forward with a sincere tanking reset around Zaccharie Risacher, Jalen Johnson and Dyson Daniels (who comes from the Pelicans, along with Larry Nance Jr. and picks).

“San Antonio is the only plausible trade partner for such a move, given that the Spurs currently own three straight Hawks drafts. Conveniently, San Antonio also desperately needs an elite point guard and could easily aggregate non-core salaries (Devonte’ Graham, Zach Collins and Tre Jones) to match Young’s $43 million salary. The fact that the Spurs just pushed back Graham’s guarantee date to July 8 at least makes you wonder.”

But there is a sense around the NBA that the Hawks could just keep Young, who has a good bond with coach Quin Snyder, and keep pushing forward. In fact, Atlanta head of basketball operations Landry Fields might have more deals up his sleeve — not involving Young, but rather assisting him.

“By moving on from Murray, the Hawks have regained the flexibility to move forward in a number of directions with or without Young,” Hollinger wrote. “… In doing so, they ended up with a roster that is younger, cheaper, more coherent and a better fit around their best player.”