If the Atlanta Hawks plan to trade either Dejounte Murry or Trae Young this summer, the word around the league is that Murray has far more value than the homegrown star.
For the first time in three years, the Hawks will not be taking part in NBA playoff games. It is the latest evidence of the surprising unraveling of a team that seems to have too much talent to have ended up where they did on the 2023-24 NBA standings.
Despite having a backcourt featuring a pair of talented All-Star level talents like Trae Young and Dejounte Murray, the team only managed to win 36 games this season. Their lowest total since the 2019-2020 season. That is why there has been a great deal of speculation that this combo is just not going to work and the front office needs to retool the roster by trading one of their star guards.
- Trae Young contract: 5 years, $215 million
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The three-time All-Star would seem like an easy player to move because of his elite talent as an offensive player. However, during a conversation with Sportsnaut this week, NBC Sports Senior Writer Kurt Helin revealed the poor opinion talent evaluators around the NBA have about Young heading into his seventh season in the league.
Is Trae Young’s trade value for the Hawks at a new low heading into the summer?
“They are going to try hard to trade Trae Young. That’s going to happen,” Helin claimed. “But from people I’ve talked to around the league these calls often go something like this, ‘Trae Young, yea, what would that [trade] look like? By the way, is Dejounte available?’ People in the league just like Dejounte’s game better.
“Where Trae Young doesn’t defend, demands the ball; he scores a lot of points, gets a lot of assists, will bring your offense up — he’s an All-Star [and] borderline All-NBA offensive player — but there’s a sense that you can’t really build a true winner around him,” he added. “You could with Dejounte. They’ve got to move one of them, it obviously doesn’t work. But it’s going to be interesting to see what they might ultimately have to settle for to move Trae.”
- Trae Young stats (2023-24): 25.7 PPG, 2.8 RPG, 10.8 APG, 1.3 SPG, 37% 3PT
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There have been rumblings for months that Young’s value around the league has fallen greatly from a peak when he led the team to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2021. It also probably explains why the Hawks reportedly had a high asking price for Murray before the deadline because they were aware he had more value around the game.