BS Report: Trading Trae
Reports surfaced last night that the Atlanta Hawks were talking trade, and Trey Young was at the forefront of the conversations. He’s been their star for several years now, but there are a couple of reasons why Trey Young may be on the trade block. Number one is contract. He has a player option for next season, so he has the ability this summer to decide whether he takes that player option and stays for one more year or becomes a free agent. Chances are he’s going to pick up that player option because it’s close to $50 million. But also, we have seen the transformation from this being Trey Young’s team to Jalen Johnson’s team. I think we all know now the future of the team is more about Jalen than Trey Young. And look, when Trey was out to for seven weeks the Hawks were better.
They’re two and eight with him in the lineup. And the ten games that he’s played two and eight. They play 38 games. So they have played better without him. Even though they struggled since December 1st. Overall, they have played better without Trey Young on the team, which kind of gives them an idea that it is time to move on. Plus, look, younger guards in the league are not getting paid extraordinary amounts of money. And you know that that is, that that is something that is kind of against Trey Young because he can’t do anything about that. Right. But this league is getting bigger and more physical, and these smaller guards are just kind of getting left out.
And the other part of this is that Trey Young does not play defense. He’s a great player. And look, it’s been four and a half years since the Hawks were in the Eastern Conference Finals in the summer of 2021. It was a great run, and it was mainly because of Trey Young, but since then there are 184 and 188, so they are a losing team since they went to the Eastern Conference finals. So instead of going upwards after reaching that pinnacle, they’ve really gone down. Now, is that all Trey Young’s fault? Absolutely not. But the Hawks have to think about their future here. They have to think about what they’re going to do moving forward. And Jalen Johnson is at the forefront of that. And I don’t think they want to pay an extraordinary amount of money to Trey Young since he’s 27 years old.
And are they going to be paying him even more, especially with him showing that he’s not being able to stay healthy right now? And look, the Hawks want Anthony Davis. There is no doubt about the rumors that have the Hawks going after the Dallas big man. And really, if they were to acquire Anthony Davis, they wouldn’t be able to keep Trey Young and be under the apron. That keeps them safe in the financial window of the NBA. Anthony Davis is a player the Hawks really need because they need physicality. They need strength and they need size. And that’s something that Trey Young cannot provide. So we’re waiting around. We’re checking our phones. We’re checking Twitter to see when it could happen. It sounds like it’s close where Trey Young could be an ex Atlanta Hawk. And I think moving forward they’re going to be in the better for it.
