What do the Hawks have that should convince Trae Young to stay in Atlanta?
The organization has failed its brightest star. The club has been through three coaches and two general managers, but the results have been the exact same — mediocrity.
With one year left before a player option, Young holds all of the power. He can essentially force Landry Fields to trade him, or he can watch the brightest star this franchise has had since Dominique Wilkins walk for nothing after declining his player option. Chris Haynes describes the situation as murky between the Hawks and Trae Young, but I don’t even think that does the situation justice.
The Hawks should be worried Trae Young is going to leave in Atlanta. He’s been 100% loyal to the organization and maybe to a fault, but the organization hasn’t held up their end of the bargain, and it comes down to two aspects:
The Hawks haven’t built a roster capable of contending
The closest the Hawks got was during the magical 2021 Eastern Conference run, but it was more luck than anything. Atlanta ran into a terrible Knicks team and a 76ers team that was on the brink of implosion. All the Hawks did was give the Sixers the nudge they needed. While it was a successful playoff run, the Hawks foolishly rested on their laurels. Since then, it’s been nothing but bad moves.
Whether it was going against Travis Schlenk’s advice that the Spurs were demanding too much for Dejounte Murray or hanging on to John Collins too long before trading him for pennies, the Hawks have failed to build a winner around Trae Young.
Granted, Fields has a solid foundation with Jalen Johnson, Dyson Daniels, and some ancillary pieces around Trae Young, but there’s a bigger obstacle than just building out the foundation of a team.
The Hawks ownership’s unwillingness to pay the luxury tax
Tony Ressler has refused to allow two GMs to go over the luxury tax threshold. There’s virtually no scenario in which a team can win or even compete for a championship without going into the luxury tax. The only examples are clubs like the Thunder that have considerable talent on cheaper deals because they drafted those players.
So, the Hawks have a couple of options: 1) Get better at drafting, or 2) be willing to go into the luxury tax because that’s the only way to get high-level players to Atlanta. And there’s a couple of issues with both of those. The Hawks haven’t shown an ability to consistently draft and develop, but even more, they don’t own their first-round pick next year.
That was a long-winded way of saying the Hawks don’t have many things to convince Trae Young to stay in Atlanta other than they can pay him more than any other team.
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Photographer: Melissa Tamez/Icon Sportswire
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