Trae Young & Luka Dončić Trade Rumors: NBA Playoffs Impact & Atlanta Hawks Season Outlook

Spurs news tonight, DeJounte Murray traded away to Atlanta for three future first round picks

It's definitely the most young, exciting backcourt in the East. Am I wrong in thinking like the Hawks? That's the best backcourt in the NBA, right

Atlanta Hawks at their peak. What does that look like? The talent we have and just everything around, we can put it together

Top three team in the East. I really believe that. Austin Celtics finally able to turn out the lights on Atlanta

win a championship you know i'm saying not just not just be in the picture just be in the running

like i want to come into the season like people look at that they can they can win and they got

a chance essentially anyone other than troy young and now jaylen johnson's coming on as kind of a

foundational piece for them everybody else that includes murray should be available fair to say

after a year and a half that transaction is not one that you would want to sort of do again if you

are the Hawks. Ever since making the 2021 Eastern Conference Finals, Trey Young and the Atlanta

Hawks have had disappointing season after disappointing season. And after about a third

of the way into the 2023-2024 NBA season, it's looking to be another one of those seasons as

they're sitting at 14 and 19 currently. But what it feels like nobody's talking about is how

incredible of a season Trey Young is having at 25 years old. He's averaging 28.2 points per game

and 11.3 assists. So who's to blame for the Atlanta Hawks' continual disappointment? And

where should they even go from here? Today in this video, we will dive into how the Atlanta Hawks

are quietly wasting prime Trae Young. When the Hawks first traded for Trae Young in the 2018

draft, giving up Luka Doncic and gaining Trae Young and a 2019 first round pick. Although

controversial at the time, it seemed like the Hawks were poised to start building something

in the Eastern Conference. And after two losing records in Trey Young's first two seasons

they would break out during the 2020-2021 season going 41-31. And at the time, it seemed like the Hawks

had a super talented young core. They had Trey Young at 22 years old

Kevin Herter at 22, DeAndre Hunter 23, John Collins 23, Cam Reddish 21

not to mention Clint Capella at 26 years old. They acquired in a trade

and signing Bogdan Bogdanovich. They would finish fifth in the Eastern Conference that season, defeat the Knicks in five games in the first round, and then shock the NBA world in a game seven that broke Ben Simmons, defeating the number one seed, Philadelphia 76ers

Although they would fall to Giannis and the Milwaukee Bucks in six games, the future was bright for Atlanta

They had their superstar in Trey Young. They had draft capital. They had their young and veteran pieces around him But then 2022 they would take a little bit of a step back going 43 finishing ninth making the play and ending up getting the eighth seed in the 2022 playoffs

where they would lose in five games to the Miami Heat. Trae Young would have an absolutely abysmal

series, averaging 15 points per game, on a shocking 32% from the field. That offseason

they would make some adjustments, trading Kevin Herter to the Kings, acquiring in a blockbuster

deal DeJounte Murray from the San Antonio Spurs coming off an all-star season basically for three

firsts but yet they'd have a very similar result going 41 and 41 finishing eighth in the Eastern

Conference somehow beating the Heat in the 7-8 play-in game but losing in the opening round in a

six-game series versus the Boston Celtics and at this point we started to wonder what is Atlanta's

plan from here. They had made a decently risky move that offseason to acquire a rising star

alongside Trey, but yet they would get pretty much the same result. Matter of fact, they were

second in the league in offensive rating and 26th in defense in 2022, and then were seventh in

offensive rating and 22nd in defense in 2023, and would actually drop four spots in net rating

And that brings us to the 2023-2024 season where the Hawks are 14-20. They've been terrible at

home this year had a pretty poor December, but yet quietly with no one really paying attention

Trey Young is having arguably the best season of his career. Averaging 28.2 points per game and 11.3

assists, which is good for second in the league behind Tyrese Halliburton, but he's also hitting

38% of his threes on a whopping 9.3 attempts per game. Matter of fact, in December alone

Trey averaged 30.4 points per game, 12.2 assists per game on 48, 42, 84 splits, becoming the only

player to average 30 and 12 over a month in the three-point era. Yet the Hawks would go 4 and 10

in December. And as much hype as Trey Young was getting in 2021 and 2022, after a down season last

year by his standards, he's completely back to 2021 Trey, but yet nobody's talking about it

And obviously that's because the Hawks just aren't that good of a team

So who is to blame for this? Let's take a look at their roster

First and foremost, the demise of John Collins is something that is somewhat puzzling

I know he had that weird finger injury in his last season with Atlanta

The team didn't want him to get surgery. He played through it. But two to three years ago, nobody saw this coming for John Collins

It's really a sad story. As he's now a below average NBA player in Utah

Then if we take a look at bogey, he may be 31, but he's surely not showing any signs of

slowing down averaging 17 points per game shooting 38 from three as well on almost nine attempts per game He also having one of the best seasons of his career and is one of the favorites for six man of the year Then we

have Jalen Johnson the 20th overall pick in 2021 having an absolutely breakout season. If you have

not watched Jalen Johnson this year I encourage you to go check out some highlights. He's absolutely

balling. Check out this poster he had on chat last night in a game where Atlanta beat the Oklahoma

City Thunder and he had 28 points, 7 rebounds, 4 steals, and shot 61% from the field. This man

went from averaging 5.6 points per game last year in only 15 minutes of play and shooting 29% from

three to now playing 30 minutes a game, 15.3 points, 8.1 rebounds, 41% from three, shooting 59.6

from the field with an insane true shooting percentage of 67.7%. Jalen Johnson and Bogie

are not the problem. Even Clint Capella has been fine to above average this year. He's pretty much

been the same player statistically for the past three seasons. However, he is $20 million and

almost 30. The Hawks should consider moving him at the deadline depending on what offers are

actually out there. When it does come to issues on this team, let's start with maybe not the biggest

one but certainly an issue deandre hunter he was drafted fourth overall atlanta made a pretty big

move for him now luckily they had taken jackson hayes at eight so it still was a good trade looking

back on it even now however what happened to deandre hunter's supposed 3 and d utility this

man has been absolutely abysmal on defense this year he has the worst defensive rating of anyone

on his team that plays over 11 minutes per game. And he hasn't even been remotely a good defender since 2021

Now he's shooting the crap out of the ball this year. So we have to give him that

A career high 40.4% from three on a career high in attempts

He has been sidelined for the past couple of weeks with a knee injury. But I feel like if you're Landry Fields, the Hawks GM

you have to move him at the deadline. He's not serving your team in the long run

and the type of team that you need to build around Jalen Johnson and Trey Young

And when it comes to AJ Griffin, I don't even know what's going on with AJ

If you're not familiar, he had a pretty good rookie season last year as the 16th pick in the 2022 NBA draft

And then this season, he's just not in the rotation, barely playing

And he did have a stretch, I know, a couple weeks ago where he was out for personal reasons, but he's been back for three or four games

and he's recording DNPs at this point. My assumption is that Quinn Snyder has just deemed his defense completely unplayable

but I'm hoping post-trade deadline, if the Hawks do in fact sell a couple pieces

that AJ will get 18 to 20 minutes a night the rest of the season so that Atlanta can at least see what they have in him let him develop and see if he can come out of this sophomore slump At the end of the day the two biggest pieces of blame I putting on the Hawks starts with number one DeJounte Murray

It's time to trade him. I'm not exactly sure what the Hawks could get for DeJounte, but if you can

get 50 cents on the dollar for what you paid for him, I think you have to do it. His contract's

going up next season, seven or eight million dollars. Plus, it's just quite clear to me that

DeJounte Murray does not fit this team. As long as you have Trey Young and shooting, this is going

to be a good offensive team. You don't need more offense, in my opinion. You need defense. And

DeJounte Murray has been pretty average defensively for the past two seasons with the Hawks. And even

if you go into some advanced metrics, including EPM and defensive EPM, heck, even defensive rating

with the Spurs, he wasn't that great. He just filled the stat sheet by leading the league

in steals that season. As I was finishing up this video, a report came out yesterday that the Atlanta

Hawks are open to trading anybody on their roster, not named Trey Young and Jalen Johnson, which I

believe is 100% the correct move. Just a few days ago when I first recorded this video, there was

talks about them acquiring Pascal Siakam, being buyers at the trade deadline, forcing this roster

construction to try to compete more, which I thought was a huge mistake. So for Trey Young's

sake, for Atlanta Hawks fans sake, for Jalen Johnson's sake, for Quinn Snyder's sake, and for

their young pieces like AJ Griffin and Kobe Buffkin's sake, I'm glad to hear they are willing to trade

at the deadline. I'll believe it when I see it. You could easily keep someone like Bogey, who's

having a career season and is on a team-friendly contract while still t the fat and retooling

for the future. Plus, let's be honest, I still think this roster can contend for the play-in

tournament without some of these pieces while setting themselves up better for the next two to

three years and giving their young guys some time to develop if you're a Hawks fan what do you think

do you want them to stand pat at the trade deadline would you actually want them to go out and buy

another piece or do you want them to retool and recenter around Trey Young and Jalen Johnson I'm

confident to say that if the Hawks do what they say they're going to do in this report that came

out yesterday that I will completely reverse my course on their idea of wasting Trey Young's prime

and I'll actually be pretty hopeful for the future of this franchise as Trey Young enters the best

years of his career but make no mistake the majority of the blame goes on ownership the

owner's son Nick Ressler and Landry Fields they were the ones that lobbied for the Stajante Murray

trade throwing previous GM Travis Schlenk under the bus we will see what happens over the coming

weeks. If you guys enjoyed this video, check out this video I made on how Tyrese Halliburton

became the NBA's newest superstar here. And as always, we'll see you on the hardwood