The Atlanta Hawks are clearly wary of handing a lucrative new contract extension to Trae Young this offseason. If they were hoping to find their way to some sort of a discount, however, that ship has likely sailed as one of Young's fellow point guards just landed a massive new deal and set the market for what Young will expect.
The impasse between Young and the Hawks is understandable. On the one hand, he is a magnetic star point guard, the face of the franchise, the player whose jersey all of the kids (and adults) wear into State Farm Arena in Atlanta. He is a four-time All-Star who has only ever played for the Hawks, and they have built the current roster to accentuate his strengths as a passer and scorer and cover up for his deficiencies off the ball and on defense.
Yet he also does have those very glaring deficiencies, and it's unclear it they are weaknesses too grave to overcome for a contending team. A new extension would take him well into his 30s, and in the current salary cap climate automatically dropping max contracts onto good-not-great players can be a death sentence.
The Hawks have reportedly not engaged in extension talks at all with Young this offseason, a fact which has not pleased the enigmatic guard. They may be waiting to see how he fits on a revamped roster and whether the Hawks can contend in a weak Eastern Conference; they may also be hoping to negotiate Young into a lower extension amount than his maximum by playing the waiting game.
That option may now be out the window.
The Spurs set the market for All-Star guards
De'Aaron Fox is a very similar player to Young; perhaps not in style of play, but both are point guards in the middle of their primes who are decidedly not Top-20 players in the league, and in Fox's case arguably not Top-30 either. Yet Fox just signed a four-year, maximum contract that projects somewhere between $222 and $229 million in total value.
The Spurs likely agreed to such a deal with Fox's camp when they traded for him at the Trade Deadline this past February, but it still sets the bar for what such a player can expect to be paid. Given that Young has accomplished more than Fox (more All-Star appearances, a run to the Conference Finals) he can reasonably demand to also be treated to the same max contract.
What's more, Fox has future leverage against the Hawks as well. If Atlanta doesn't extend him this offseason, and Young makes an All-NBA team on an improved Hawks team, he will be eligible not for the 30 percent max that Fox just signed for, but the 35 percent supermax. That contract should terrify Atlanta, especially given how things just ended for Bradley Beal -- another guard never in the Top-20 players in the league but who qualified for a supermax at the right time.
Those are a lot of competing pressures for the Hawks front office. Do they make an offer? Do they wait? One door, the negotiate-a-lower-salary door, appears to have been slammed shut by De'Aaron Fox and the Spurs. How they move forward from here will mean a lot for this franchise for years to come.