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“The simple fact of the matter is if there was a real trade market for Trae Young, he’d be somewhere else right now.”
That analysis from ESPN’s Tim MacMahon on the Hoop Collective podcast nicely captures the awkwardness that pervades the relationship between the Atlanta Hawks and their star point guard.
Last year, the Hawks had another disappointing season, finishing with a 36-46 regular-season record. They followed that up with a resounding defeat to the Chicago Bulls in their only play-in game. Now, both parties seemed more willing to part ways than ever before.
Hawks and Trae Young heading for a breakup?
For his part, Young told WSBTV’s Alison Mastrangelo in his end-of-season exit interview: “Obviously I want to be here. I want to be here, but I want to win too…”.
Meanwhile, his employers realised that pairing Young with Dejounte Murray was not a realistic path to contending for a championship. To course correct, they shipped Murray to New Orleans and endured a summer of speculation about Young’s future.
In the end, Young stayed put and will begin the 2024-25 season with the Hawks. Yet, as MacMahon makes clear, that outcome was not for want of trying otherwise on the part of the Hawks.
It is then worth asking why the trade market was so small for a three-time All-Star and member of the 2022 All-NBA Third Team. Are his long-term prospects limited to Atlanta? If not, where might he end up?
Trae Young has a lot to offer…
Embed from Getty ImagesIt seems unusual that a player of Young’s quality wouldn’t be deemed a sound roster addition by 29 other teams.
This player finished last season joint-15th in points-per-game (25.7), level with Lebron James. He was just behind Anthony Edwards and ahead of Damian Lillard and 2024 Finals MVP Jaylen Brown.
Not only this, but Young was second in the number of assists he dished out per game in the entire league (10.8). That mark only lagged behind Tyrese Haliburton.
Add to that the fact that at just 25 (26 come 2024-2024 opening night), Young should be entering his prime years, as well as the memory of him carrying an uninspiring roster to a shock Eastern Conference Finals appearance just three years ago, and the puzzle of his lack of market only deepens.
…but with diminishing returns
Or at least it would be better to leave the analysis there. As much as Trae Young is a prodigiously talented offensive player, some fairly glaring holes in his game limit his overall value.
Dunks and Threes’ EPM metric attempts to capture a player’s impact on his team in a single number. Last season, it ranked Trae as the 47th-best player in the NBA.
Looking at offence alone, that rank would jump to 18th. However, compared to other superstars, Young bleeds a significant portion of his value away on defense.
With his small stature and limited awareness, opposing teams know they can greatly target him.
Embed from Getty ImagesFurther complicating matters is that Young has to have the ball a disproportionate amount of time to be effective. Cleaning the Glass puts Young’s usage at over 30% in every season of his career, always well within the top 10% of all players.
Young doesn’t pair nicely with other high-level guards/ball-handlers. Only one of them can have the ball at any one time. Trae is also far from the most active off-ball player.
The failure of the Trae Young-Dejounte Murray duo is a testament to the difficulties in finding an effective partner for Young.
Finding Trae Young’s new home
With these limitations to his skill set, the limited market for Young makes a lot more sense.
Young is still elite but faces a limited timeframe to win and contend. It might be that 2024 first-overall pick Zaccharie Risacher is immediately a needle-mover for the Hawks. If not, offering his services elsewhere would be in Young’s interest. If he does, his team will want to get as much as they can back from trading him.
If not earlier, such a move could happen by next year’s February 3 trade deadline.
Picking a destination for Trae Young
The unfortunate truth for Young is that most teams in the NBA already have a star-level guard of greater, or at least comparable, value.
No team in that position will be willing to expend the capital necessary to make what is generously a lateral move.
The Candidates
To this author, that leaves the following teams for whom Young would be a definitive upgrade:
- Brooklyn
- Chicago
- Miami
- Toronto
- Detroit
- Washington
- Portland
- Utah
- LA (the Lakers)
- San Antonio
As alluded, Young wants to maximise his chances of winning an NBA championship.
To that end, any potential move for Trae would need to be to somewhere that is already a title contender, at the very least. It must take him somewhere with the talent to become one within the next three to five years.
Embed from Getty ImagesThat criteria rules out the Brooklyn Nets, Chicago Bulls, Washington Wizards, and Portland Trailblazers. These teams are either just beginning a lengthy rebuilding process or are still very early on in that journey.
Acquiring Trae Young wouldn’t fit their timeline or Trae’s. He’d make them too competitive to get the high draft picks they need but not good enough to make a deep run.
In a related vein, the Toronto Raptors and Detriot Pistons don’t seem like they would be interested in Trae Young either. Neither of them could be said to be still tanking for high draft picks. However, they both already have an exciting young ball-handler they intend to build around.
For the Raptors, Scottie Barnes certainly looks like the future of their franchise, while for the Pistons, Cade Cunningham has shown flashes of why he was drafted first overall in 2021.
Adding Trae Young would immediately increase these two teams’ chances of making the playoffs. However, it would risk interfering with the development of Barnes and Cunningham and likely still wouldn’t put them at a championship level.
Embed from Getty ImagesThe Ideal Landing Spots
That leaves just the Miami Heat, Utah Jazz, Los Angeles Lakers and San Antonio Spurs as possible landing spots for Trae Young. Of note, the latter two of this group were heavily linked with Young as part of the rumours that swirled around him all summer.
The Heat and Lakers look the most attractive, as in Bam Adebayo and Anthony Davis- both have versatile, play-finishing bigs who would synergise well with Trae’s strength in the pick-and-roll while covering for his defensive deficiencies.
Wherever he ends up, Trae Young could be the decisive factor in shifting the balance of power across the NBA next season.