Atlanta Hawks Trade Deadline Predictions
By Dallin Duffy
No ET trade; buy-out soon
It’s been understood for quite some time now that Evan Turner was going to be either traded or bought-out in February, and now that’s it’s February, it seems even more inevitable.
Turner played his first minutes since late December last night in the Hawks’ loss to Boston. On one hand, the Hawks were basically forced to go back to Turner with their plethora of injuries at the moment, but on the other hand, my conspiracy hand, they could have played him to flash his value a bit.
With his huge contract however, Turner will not be traded unless the Hawks are taking in a similar sized contract. Unless they deal for Drummond or someone else unexpected with matching money, Turner likely won’t be in a trade.
Instead he’ll be bought-out, likely signing with a contender as a deep bench guy who could play in the playoffs if need be. The Hawks went through similar situations in each of the last two seasons, buying out Jeremy Lin a season ago, who got a ring despite clocking 51 seconds in the Finals.
Two years ago it was Marco Belinelli and Ersan Ilyasova, who both joined the Sixers after being bought out. The Hawks have also bought vets Carmelo Anthony and Lou Williams out of their contracts after off season transactions. They’re certainly no stranger to it.
All three of those guys probably had more trade value then than the 31-year-old Evan Turner does now, and I find it highly unlikely he gets dealt.
How soon it happens is the real question, but going off of past examples, it’ll likely be a week or two after the deadline.