4 Reasons why the Hawks should not trade Trae Young or Dejounte Murray

Landry Fields’ comments add context to Hawks’ advanced metrics

The most understated part of all of this has been that neither Young nor Murray has pushed for a trade publicly despite the organization’s seemingly thinly-veiled attempts to split them up. But front offices do due diligence; it’s part of the job.

General Manager Landry Fields also admitted that some of the numbers around the pairing indicate that it does not work.

But Fields also said the Hawks will explore the other side of that same coin.

“Sample size is getting larger and larger and larger,” Fields told reporters at the trade deadline. “I can't lie to you. The numbers speak for themselves on that. But we're also interested in, well, let's say they're on the court together and it's based off the numbers it's not working out. Well, why is that? 

“For those guys – or any particular instance – yeah, it's looking at, ‘Okay, why when it is working on the court, why is that successful? Why are we seeing positive results of that? What is it that you're doing? Those would be the things that for us, I think, tie back into a lot of our pillars.”

Fields has been given the freedom to remake the roster. But the Hawks added an experienced Assistant General Manager in Onsi Saleh, who comes from the Golden State Warriors.

The Warriors notably produced former Hawks president Travis Schlenk.

Schlenk was the architect of the current Hawks core and Fields’ boss until a series of events – keyed in part by the trade to acquire Murray – led to his abrupt exit after moving to an advisory role in December 2022.

In many ways, that now makes the current iteration of the Hawks that we’ve seen for the last two years Fields’ baby, the failure of which could have significant ramifications.

It is all the more reason for the Hawks GM to practice patience.