Disappointing Trade Deadline Outing Could Jeopardize Trae Young’s Future With Hawks

The Atlanta Hawks were one of the primary teams to make a major move ahead of the deadline. And their premium attraction was Dejounte Murray. But no such moves happened, and the deadline has passed uneventfully. Just like it did for the Los Angeles Lakers and Golden State Warriors.

However, in the latest update, it seems like league personnel have concluded that the face of the franchise, Trae Young, might be available for trade in the offseason. All the pre-trade deadline chatter led to such a belief.

Although the front office executives got such an impression, Jake Fischer of Yahoo Sports further says, “That could very well prove to be wishful thinking from rival teams.” He even provided examples of Milwaukee or Philadelphia putting Giannis and Embiid, respectively, on the trade block. In other words, virtually impossible.

And yet, the other side of the coin might offer a somewhat different perspective. Having made a name for himself after being traded to Atlanta in the infamous Luka Doncic-Young exchange, ‘Ice Trae’ was looked upon to take the Blackhawks to paradise. Although there have been rapid improvements and the 25-year-old has remained consistent, the Hawks are yet to see overall progress.

In Trae‘s sixth season now, the ‘Peach State’ ranks 11th in the East with a 22-29 record. And they are most recently on a two-game skid. Young is averaging 27.1 points, 2.8 rebounds, and 10.9 assists per game this season. And the assists is the aspect to focus on for a certain team that could benefit from it.

The possible destination for Trae Young

All Young wants is a ring. So do the 30 teams in the NBA. Yet there is still one team that knows they aren’t going anywhere near a finals this season. And that’s the team that Trae Young has been linked with the most. The San Antonio Spurs are in the process of rebuilding and creating a dominant cast around generational talent, Victor Wembanyama.

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And they are desperately in need of a point guard. This is where Young’s stat of assists comes into play. Although he sits second in the league’s list of assists leaders (10.9 per game), Trae tops the NBA currently for most assists. More specifically, 500 assists in 46 games.

Young is quite excellent at feeding easy shots to bigs. This will allow Wembanyama to get shots in regularly off rolls and cuts. With Trae improving his off-ball movement under the expert guidance of Snyder and pairing him with elite playmaking skills like Wemby’s make for a potent offensive duo.

But as Fischer noted above, Young on the trade block could very well turn out to be just wishful thinking. Anyway, for now, what Atlanta needs to focus is getting a place in the playoffs.

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