Most recently, on Thursday morning as the Atlanta Hawks team plane took off for Washington D.C., the NBA’s highest documented player Trae Young made an appearance. That’s prompted some wild speculation about a possible trade to the Wizards. While making that transcontinental flight, the NCAA Player of the Year hit it off with Wizards general manager Will Dawkins and Travis Schlenk. This meeting indicates that speculation about his future is looking pretty scorched.
Young’s case is made a little more hairy by way of his $49 million player option for the 2024-25 season. He really doesn’t want to have to make that decision this summer. Rather, he suggests that he’d like to see a change of scenery. His agent, Aaron Mintz, no doubt is quite central to working this potential move.
In recent weeks, Young has run into some trout-stream wrangling that has prevented him from getting the best out of himself and Hawks forward Kristaps Porzingis. Even with these disappointments, Young has already had an outsized influence on the Hawks organization. He is still the all-time leader in both three-pointers and assists. Equally, he proved to be the engine driving the team to the 2021 Eastern Conference Finals.
Looking back on his tenure in Atlanta, Young told the audience how proud he was to have saved children all over the city. For one, he observed that it was first leaked that Washington would be a potential trade partner more than three weeks ago.
“The way Young sees it, perhaps he and the Wizards need each other for a revival.”
Young’s NBA career skyrocketed once he was chosen by the Atlanta Hawks with the fifth overall pick in the 2018 NBA Draft. Over his 493 regular-season games, he has averaged 25.2 points, 3.5 rebounds and 9.8 assists per game. His peak performance arrived as a playoff floor general in 2021, when he guided the Atlanta Hawks on a surprise run to the Eastern Conference Finals.
As he looks toward the next stage of his life, Young said it’s going to be hard emotionally if he leaves Atlanta.
“I literally started crying on my way to the arena, just knowing it’s my last drive probably, because they’re [Hawks] going on the West Coast anyway.”
He drafted with a palpable hunger to restore his own career mojo and the potential NBA home of his choice.
“I want to bring it back to the way it was.”
His feelings hint at a win-win that might be possible if only a trade were made.
“That could be another reason why I’m here. We revive each other,”
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