Erik Drost, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

The Trade

Hawks Receive:

CJ McCollum

Corey Kispert

Wizards Receive:

Trae Young

It’s official, we’ve got our first trade of the season approaching the trade deadline. And it’s certainly a big one. We’ve heard some rumours before the year started that Trae Young might be on the move, but we didn’t know it would happen so soon.

We heard many reports and updates leading up to this trade. First, we found out that the Hawks were open to trading him. Then we were told that Trae and his agent were working with the Hawks to find a new home for him, indicating that Trae was open to a trade himself. During these discussions, Trae listed the Wizards as his preferred destination.

That’s when we got the bomb from Shams that Trae had been traded.

Wizards

This is a great deal for the Wizards. They fill a glaring hole at point guard with one of the best in the league. CJ McCollum has never been a true playmaker; he plays more like a score-first guard. This year, McCollum is only averaging 3.6 assists per game while taking 15 shots a contest as well. That’s not what you want from your floor general, especially with a bunch of young guys on the team like Alex Sarr, Tre Johnson, and Kyshwan George. 

On the other hand, Trae Young is an amazing point guard, being able to get everyone involved. Over the course of Young’s career, he’s averaged double-digit assists 4 times and even led the league last year with 11.6 a game. He’s going to be able to get all the young guys involved in the offense, especially Alex Sarr, who’s going to be an amazing lob partner for Trae. On top of this, the Wizards didn’t have to give up a single pick, not even one in the second round. This is huge because it allows them to still have picks to continue to draft young talent, or once they get competitive, use these draft picks in another trade. 

A lot of people are going to say this trade prevents the Wizards from tanking, while this is true, it won’t severely impact their ability to get a top pick. Right now, the Wizards have a 14% chance at landing the number one pick with the third-worst record in the league. Even if they got slightly better and hypothetically became the 5th-worst team, they would still have a 10% at getting the first overall pick. That’s only a 4% difference, and if we look at things from a big picture, the Wizards just got one of the most talented offensive players in the game for almost nothing. That’s certainly worth that 4%.

Grade: A

Hawks

It was clear that the 4-time all-star wasn’t a good fit in Atlanta anymore. The way the Hawks roster is built doesn’t support the way Trae plays anymore. In prior years, Trae had always been a good fit in Atlanta because the Hawks never had someone who could score the ball whenever they wanted, but then also set up his teammates in a position where they could succeed. That’s what gave Trae a free pass on defense. But this year, the Hawks have multiple players who can score the ball. Including Jalen Johnson, who’s broken out, averaging 24 a night with 8 assists, and Nickeil Alexander-Walker, who might be a dark horse for MIP, putting up 20 ppg on 36% from three. 

Trae’s trade value was at an all-time low; his obvious defensive incapabilities have been a huge problem for the Hawks for a long-time now and have been especially highlighted this season. We all knew the Hawks wouldn’t get a huge return for Trae, but I don’t think anybody would’ve thought they would get this little for their franchise cornerstone. They couldn’t even get a single talented young player or draft pick for someone who took them to the conference finals just five years ago. The only good news that comes out of this trade for them is that CJ McCollum is a free agent after this year, so 31 million dollars will come off the Hawks’ payroll. This means the Hawks could have potentially 25-30 million dollars in cap space this offseason because Kristaps Porzingis’ contract also comes off the books. I know this wasn’t the return the Hawks were looking for, but I do have to commend the Hawks’ front office on making this trade. It was clear Trae didn’t make sense on the Hawks anymore and a trade had to be made.

Grade: C