The Trae Young Situation
Since the summer of 2023, Hawks fans have had to deal with Trae Young trade rumours. And recently, I've started to see more people talking about it while also being asked questions about it personally, so I thought I’d do an essay on it. So how did we get here? What can we expect to happen in the near future? And what is best for both sides?
So some of you may know, I’m a Hawks fan, I’m from the UK, and because of this I haven’t been watching basketball for many years and wasn’t a Hawks fan prior to Trae Young being a Hawk. So as you might understand, it feels like a very personal topic for someone I’ve watched so much from, and almost all my basketball viewership has been watching this guy. There’s no team I watch nearly as much as I watch the Hawks. Although I am a relatively new Hawks fan, I’ve been blessed to speak with many other fans, who have been watching for years. Trae Young is one of the most talented players we have ever had. I'm just going to say real quick, I do not care about the St. Louis Hawks. Shoutout Bob Pettit, but a lot of Hawks fans do not care about that. Trae Young is one of our best players of all time, and our FO and ownership have done a terrible job. So let’s start with a timeline of the most defining moments to the current situation.
2018: Travis Schlenk, Hawks GM from 2017, trades Luka Doncic for Trae Young + a 2019 first (Cam Reddish).
The 2019/20 season saw Trae Young receive his first All-Star appearance as a starter. The first Hawks starter in 20 years was Dikembe Mutumbo, who was an All-Star starter in 1998.
Noticeably, Clint Capela was acquired at the deadline from the Rockets.
Bogdan Bogdanovic signed with us in November of 2020, a noticeable name for the build of this team. Had a very successful tenure with the Hawks and was a fan favourite.
This was the first of Trae Young's all-star ’snubs’, averaging 25 and 9 over the season. The game was held in Atlanta, and it was somewhat confusing to see him miss it. An explanation we can get for this was the fact Trae was disliked by many coaches due to Lloyd Pierce's firing early. In the season, many contributed this to not just the lacklustre team record, but also Trae Young and him having a tough relationship after comments due to him being snubbed from the original Team USA finalist roster for the 2020 Olympics. This started him gaining a reputation as a ‘Coach Killer.’
As much as I would love to go over the Hawks 2021 playoff run, I think a lot of us remember how that went. A surprising run to the conference finals, taking the Bucks to 6 games while Trae had injury issues, big wins over the 76ers, and a memorable series against the Knicks with Trae Young performances that linger in the memory of many fans. And it has led to a very well-known rivalry.
2021: This was a down year compared to the last, ending as a 9th seed with a 43-39 record.
Trae Young had the best season of his career, a 2nd All-Star Game and starter appearance, and then an All-NBA 3rd team selection.
The main problem with this team was defence, a struggle for every Hawks team in this era, but it was most noticeable during this period.
This was one of the most defining moments that led to the current rumours. The Heat series was horrible. Being picked apart by the Heat's defensive scheme, Trae was stopped and cut off most of the offence for the team.
This season showed a lot to the hawks which caused them to make moves that is the biggest turning point for this team
THE 2022 offseason
The Hawks traded Danilo Gallinari and 3 firsts to the San Antonio Spurs to acquire Dejounte Murray.
Dejounte and Trae had developed a friendship at the All-Star game; the ownership was sold on the idea of teaming them up, but who wasn’t was Schlenk. He apparently did not want to do the trade; this led to him leaving the FO and being replaced with assistant Landry Fields.
Looking back at this moment, I probably should have listened. This was never a good fit. My problem with this was the fact I view DJ as a point guard defender. He isn’t really big enough to pair with Trae.
Another thing that happened this offseason was questions with Trae’s leadership; he decided to fly home alone after the series, which really didn’t help the view from the outside of him. Trae cleared the air in a meeting with Coach McMillan.
So I’m going to summarise the next couple of years: play in appearances, a mediocre Trae Young season, and a breakout year for Jalen Johnson. Mass injuries and round 1 defeats. We hit basketball purgatory. John Collins started snaking to the media and was traded for a packet of chips.
So here we are. 24/25 season, we have hit the era of no picks from the DJ trade, who is no longer here.
This season has given Hawks fans a lot of hope for the future; Risacher, Dyson Daniels, and Jalen Johnson all look great. We were able to get some value after a great De’Andre Hunter season at the deadline. But really, where does this team want to go?
What do the hawks want?
Really, this is one of the hardest teams to read, whether that's the terrible ownership who won’t go in the tax and wants to farm money from Trae Young's fan pull, or is it Landry Fields repeating “Hawks DNA” every press saying that's our direction? What do we want? We decided not to trade Trae to the Spurs, who apparently were interested. We don’t have our picks, so we can't really decide our own direction. But we kind of see a team that finally suits Trae Young. Better defence, good 3pt shooters. We are missing some bigger players, but we have some decent potential to finally build something.
Trae Young has changed.
I want to thank Trae Young for what he’s done for his own outlook this season and his own determination to be a leader and help out this young team. He has really changed from this Coach Killer and lack of leadership to someone who really is focusing on getting to know his teammates and helping out the young guys and finally being that team leader we want.
I think we should keep him as long as he wants to stay, and right now, it seems like he wants to stay. I mean, we haven’t heard any direct comments or anything from insiders directly from Trae, only speculation. Trae Young really is a positive influence in Atlanta; we would be losing one of the best players we have had. And one of the best offensive talents in the modern game. So if he wants to leave, we should respect that; if he wants to stay, we should keep trying to build that roster around him.
If I were to make my best speculation attempt, I don’t think Trae wants to ask out. I think he would rather leave as a free agent in 2026 or be traded through the ownership or FO decision. One that won’t be made since Landry doesn’t really know what he’s doing and because Tony Ressler won’t trade Trae so he can farm money from him.
It’s an upsetting situation, but it feels wrong for this to happen. Someone who has done so much for us, he doesn’t deserve how the ownership has really treated him and how the decisions they’ve made impacted his future.
So yeah, that's really it. I would really doubt this situation resolves this offseason; I think we are going to run it back next year, and it's going to be a big 2026 offseason.