One of many prevailing tendencies of the 2025-26 season has been how restricted commerce curiosity has been for small, defensively poor level guards making max salaries. The Ja Morant rumors got here and went with only some groups recognized to have had curiosity. Ditto LaMelo Ball. It says fairly a bit about this market that the one staff persistently linked to those gamers is Sacramento. That has little to do with Sacramento’s materials circumstances. The entire basketball world simply thinks the Kings are far sufficient behind league-wide roster-building tendencies to commerce for gamers different groups don’t need.

Trae Younger falls proper within the thick of that Ball-Morant tier of misfit level guards. He has at occasions been the worst defensive participant within the NBA, although he is ticked his effort up simply sufficient currently to duck that label. All of these pre-draft hopes that he’d grow to be a Stephen Curry-esque shooter have long-since dissipated. He actually solely takes tough, pull-up 3s, making them at a reasonably modest fee and doing not one of the off-ball work it takes to generate clear, catch-and-shoot seems to be. He is a reasonably one-dimensional participant at this level, a heliocentric, pick-and-roll level guard in a league that is transferring away from that mannequin.

On Monday, ESPN reported that the Hawks are working with Younger’s representatives on a attainable commerce. That ought to shock nobody. Younger is making max cash to play for a staff that now not desires him. Atlanta is 2-8 with him on the ground this season, and 15-12 with out him. They’ve moved on, following the league’s newfound desire for measurement, protection, athleticism and offensive steadiness. That places Younger in a reasonably precarious place. With solely a year-and-a-half left on his contract, he must discover a staff that really does worth his particular talent set at a degree in league historical past by which only a few groups really do.

Marc Stein reported one risk on Monday: the Washington Wizards. For a wide range of causes, they is perhaps the one staff in basketball that genuinely matches Younger proper now. So let’s dig into why that is the case, and the way a commerce would in the end profit the Hawks.

Why Younger is sensible for the Wizards

One of many greatest causes so many groups concern gamers like Younger is that they decrease your ceiling. Anybody with distinct weaknesses will get attacked relentlessly within the playoffs. Younger’s measurement makes him an enormous goal. His off-ball indifference limits the form of gamers you may put subsequent to him. Most younger groups don’t need somebody monopolizing the ball as a result of they need their younger gamers to make use of possessions for improvement. Most contending groups do not need to commerce for somebody who monopolizes the ball as a result of the mere reality that they are contending normally means they have already got veterans who’re nice with the ball. You both have somebody who’s already higher than Trae Younger otherwise you’re growing somebody you hope will sooner or later grow to be higher than Trae Younger.

These points are magnified by the 2023 CBA. Previously, groups would simply stack expertise hoping to determine it out later. Worst-case situation, they’d simply commerce considered one of their stars in the event that they did not match. However big contracts have by no means been extra damaging than they’re to day, and that has frozen giant swaths of the commerce market. The very last thing any staff desires is getting caught with an enormous contract they can not transfer owed to a participant they do not really want.

The theoretical profit to including a participant like Younger is that, whereas he presents important drawbacks in high-leverage settings, he’s so good and so according to the ball in his arms within the common season that including him, offered he performs at his regular degree, is an effective method of elevating your organizational ground. Simply have a look at the offensive rankings Atlanta has posted with Younger on the ground yearly. They nearly at all times examine effectively to the perfect offenses within the NBA.

Regardless of by no means taking part in with one other All-Star expertise earlier than Jalen Johnson’s emergence this season, Younger has nearly at all times led the Hawks to above-average or higher offense when he is been on the ground. That will not result in championships, however it results in regular-season profitable, or at the least, it prevents outright tanking. Younger makes you so good on offense that you’re going to at the least hover across the Play-In combine, the place the Hawks have lived over the previous few years. Atlanta is able to graduate to greater and higher, however there are different groups which may prefer to take that leap.

One such staff is, apparently, the Wizards. Washington at the moment ranks twenty seventh in offense. The Wizards have been thirtieth final season and twenty fifth the yr earlier than that. Now, this was by and huge the intention. The Wizards have been tanking for draft picks, so the dropping has been by design. However they’ve run right into a little bit of a difficulty as they’ve stored dropping. They have not created a great setting for these draft picks they have been banking on to develop.

The Wizards have made three lottery picks since this rebuild started. Two of them, Alex Sarr and Bilal Coulibaly, have been extraordinarily uncooked, athletic forwards. The third, Tre Johnson, is one other small guard, however one with no actual intuition for playmaking. He is a shooter first, second and third. Other than being so uncooked that they barely know what they’re doing but as gamers, they’re level guard-reliant archetypes. They want somebody to create photographs for them, to run an organized offense that they’ll develop inside.

Younger matches the invoice. If the Wizards can carry him in with out surrendering any property (and the most recent reporting is that they’d really need to obtain draft capital for taking him in), they might attempt to take the leap from outright tanking to average competitiveness subsequent season. In doing so, they’d have the ability to consider how their prospects look with an precise level guard holding their arms. And so they’d have the ability to do that with out making a long-term dedication to Younger.

For causes we’ll focus on shortly, Atlanta has actual motivation to maneuver Younger earlier than the offseason. However Washington’s books are so clear that there would actually be no hurt for the Wizards in including a max wage for the 2026-27 season. Proper now, the costliest Wizard on subsequent yr’s steadiness sheet is Corey Kispert. He’ll make a bit lower than $14 million, so lower than the mid-level exception. Relying on the place they draft, they will be within the neighborhood of $80 million in cap house subsequent offseason. Even when they tackle Younger and he picks up his $49 million participant possibility, they will have loads of cash leftover for additional additions.

After that possibility? Younger’s contract expires, and that is the true attraction for Washington. The plan can be for the Wizards to audition Younger for the following year-and-a-half, see how he matches alongside their younger gamers and determine tips on how to proceed from there. Realizing how a lot worth level guards of his ilk have misplaced currently, they’d probably have the ability to finally re-sign him at a lower cost than his current contract. And in the event that they occur to draft a ball-dominant guard they like between now and his eventual free company, they’ll let him stroll with little hurt performed past the misplaced alternative price of the cap house they dedicated to him. Even that might be minimal. Spending $80 million in cap house in a single offseason is sort of not possible to do responsibly until you are including stars. Simply ask the Nets, who nonetheless have $15 million in house leftover from final summer season.

So there are fairly just a few stars aligning right here for Younger and the Wizards. Each the cash and the basketball match make sense. The one query is what kind of deal would work for Atlanta. Fortuitously, the Hawks will probably be very motivated to make a deal.

Why the Wizards make sense as a commerce accomplice for the Hawks

We have already coated Atlanta’s superior report with Younger out, and we have addressed the league-wide disinterest in small, heliocentric level guards. However there is a far larger motivator for Atlanta right here, and it is monetary.

The precise numbers are nonetheless to be decided based mostly on Atlanta’s draft place by way of that ultra-valuable New Orleans first-round choose, however with Younger on their books subsequent season, the Hawks are hovering proper across the projected wage cap. Take away Younger from the equation, nevertheless, and Atlanta has pathways to over $40 million in cap house. That determine might shrink in the event that they win the lottery, however regardless, it will unlock plenty of very fascinating roster-building paths for the Hawks as they pivot in direction of their new, youthful core.

The apparent method by which they might use that flexibility can be buying and selling for Anthony Davis. They have been closely linked to the Dallas large man, and will match most of his cash with the expiring contracts of Kristaps Porziņģis and Luke Kennard. If the Hawks traded for Davis with out transferring Younger, they’d be taking a look at greater than $210 million owed to only eight gamers for subsequent season: Davis, Younger, Jalen Johnson, Dyson Daniels, Onyeka Okongwu, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Zaccharie Risacher and the New Orleans choose. That might in all probability be untenable. Atlanta’s present possession group has by no means paid the posh tax, and people eight gamers alone would take them past subsequent yr’s projection. Even when Risacher is within the deal, they’d should spend a lot to fill out the roster with depth that they’d be in apron territory.

However get off of Younger forward of time with out taking in any long-term wage and the equation modifications. All of a sudden, the Hawks might add Davis, hold their younger core, and even store round for free-agent assist with the non-taxpayer mid-level exception with out worrying an excessive amount of concerning the tax. The Wizards are one of many few groups that would facilitate such a cap dump. Between Khris Middleton and C.J. McCollum, they’ve $64 million in expiring contracts connected to gamers who aren’t lengthy for Washington whether or not they’re on this commerce or not. This could possibly be a reasonably easy cap dump: Younger and Kennard for McCollum and Middleton. If the Wizards actually do need draft capital to assist the Hawks on this method, there is a fairly simply resolution right here. Washington has Oklahoma Metropolis’s first-round choose, which is able to nearly definitely fall at No. 30. Atlanta has Cleveland’s first-round choose, which in the end ought to land round No. 20. Simply swap them. Downside solved. That it additionally saves the Hawks a bit of additional cash subsequent season is the cherry on prime.

This plan does not should be particular to Davis. Think about that the Hawks merely dumped Younger and held onto the remainder of their cap house. They’d have these six core gamers of Johnson, Okongwu, Alexander-Walker, Risacher, Daniels and the incoming Pelicans choose, all underneath the age of 27 and locked up for at the least two extra years apiece at team-friendly costs. They’d have low cost depth already with gamers like Asa Newell, Vit Krejci and Mo Gueye making the minimal or thereabouts subsequent season. And so they’d have $40 million or so in house plus the cap room mid-level exception to buy groceries with in free company.

They’d have two fairly easy wants at that time. The primary can be some measure of shot-creation to exchange Younger, ideally at round half of the worth. The opposite can be an enormous man who can shoot a bit to offset their forwards, who’re by-and-large shaky in that respect. 

The previous is simple sufficient to search out. Coby White will in all probability be gettable within the $25 million a yr vary. Is he pretty much as good as Younger? No, however he is a greater off-ball participant, he is larger, and he will price roughly half as a lot. If they need somebody a bit cheaper, they might in all probability sniff round different small guards getting affected by these altering league tides. Collin Sexton and Anfernee Simons appear very attainable. Possibly they get a bit extra bold and go after Austin Reaves. There are guards out there at just about any value level this offseason. Changing Younger with somebody that generates extra worth per greenback spent ought to be doable.

Discovering a capturing heart would probably be harder. The entire league is searching for these gamers, in spite of everything. Maybe they might attempt to carry again Porziņģis in free company, or chase Nikola Vučević. Possibly the Giannis Antetokounmpo state of affairs performs out in such a method that Myles Turner turns into out there by way of commerce. Having monetary flexibility and draft picks to work with offers Atlanta some choices right here. There’s not an apparent goal, however there will probably be an possibility someplace.

The brand new apron-centric world we now stay in is forcing groups to be extra prudent about the place they spend their cash. It should open doorways for groups which are well-built and inexpensive to problem groups that should make tough decisions for monetary causes. Because it stands now, the 2026-27 Hawks will not have a single participant making greater than $30 million subsequent season. They might not have the ability to match the sphere in star energy, however they’ll attempt to outdo them with depth and flexibility. That is the true advantage of a Younger commerce. It relieves them of a participant they now not need whereas liberating up the sources for them to pursue all the pieces else they want. The Wizards, given these expiring contracts and their circumstantial want for somebody like Younger, will be the solely staff within the NBA that is prepared to try this for Atlanta. Everybody else probably has some unhealthy cash it will want to incorporate in a deal.