Despite a remarkable eight-year career, the NBA just proved it does not value Trae Young, as the Atlanta Hawks traded him for pennies on the dollar on Wednesday night. Even more insulting, they finalized the deal while both the Hawks and Washington Wizards were in the midst of a game.
Young was traded for CJ McCollum and Corey Kispert, neither of whom are particularly inspiring assets. McCollum is 34 and has been on the decline for some time now. He is clearly a worse player than Young – the real value of McCollum is in his expiring contract. Atlanta was willing to downgrade simply to get Young’s $49 million player option off the books.
Kispert brings more long-term value to the team as a 27-year-old sharpshooter on a four-year, team-friendly deal. The Gonzaga product has shot 39.1% from deep over the past four seasons and has etched himself as one of the premier sharpshooters in the league in his five-year career.
Kispert is clearly a below-average defender, ranking in the bottom quartile of wings in steal percentage, deflections per 100, defensive impact on shot quality, and stop percentage (measuring how effective he is as a perimeter stopper). Essentially, the Hawks traded for another Luke Kennard, albeit one that actually shoots as often as you would like him to.
This is a sad way for the Trae Young-era to end
As any Hawks fan would tell you, Young is worth much more than an aging scorer and bench sharpshooter. The league, however, does not see this.
It is easy to see why opposing GMs could talk themselves out of a Young trade. The team has never been particularly successful with him at the helm, outside of a 2021 playoff run that now looks like a massive fluke. After all, Ben Simmons had the gaffe of the decade in Game 7 that secured Atlanta’s spot in the Eastern Conference Finals.
What rival teams fail to understand, however, is that Young was failed by the Hawks. He never had a remotely competitive team that was healthy for a full year. He’s played just 43 games alongside his co-star Jalen Johnson since the Duke product broke out as a truly elite player last season. This season, he played just three games with Kristaps Porzingis – every other game Young played with only one healthy center on the roster, and that big man is just 6’8.
While the Hawks needed to get Young off the books to rebuild for the Jalen Johnson era, one can only wonder if this could have ended differently.