The Hawks find themselves at a crossroads this offseason. It’s clear that the backcourt of Trae Young and Dejounte Murray isn’t working; one has to go.
Both are All-Star caliber point guards that can be effective when the other is off the court, but the pair don’t complement each other when on the court together. It’s quite obvious.
By the eye test and metrics, Murray and Young aren’t working together. However, as noted earlier, both are All-Star talents that will have robust trade markets. For the Hawks, weighing which one to build around could be difficult.
Trae Young is box office, proven capable of leading a team on a deep playoff run, and is a much more dynamic player than his counterpart. On the other hand, Dejounte Murray is two-way versatile, on a much cheaper contract and is under team control for longer. The Hawks would seemingly get a bigger return for Young than Murray as well.
The vast majority of Hawks fans believe the club will trade one of them, but I don’t think anyone is seriously considering Atlanta trading both of them. Except Bill Simmons, who believes that the Hawks are ‘more likely than not’ going to move on from both Murray and Young.
“The thing I keep hearing from people is that if it was an over of one on FanDuel, Trae and Murray get traded and the over’s one and you could bet under, push, or over, that some people seem to think both of those guys are getting traded is a thing I’ve heard,” Simmons said on the latest episode of The Bill Simmons Podcast, via ClutchPoints.
Restocking with draft picks and young pieces to build around Jalen Johnson and the No. 1 pick should be on the table, and Simmons seems confident the Hawks are considering it.
“From different people that don’t know each other, who know things, [they said that the Hawks are] just like, ‘You know what, we’ve got the number one pick, this didn’t work, we got to the Conference Finals that one time, let’s just try to blow this up.’”
I don’t know if Simmons realizes that the Hawks don’t own their first-round picks for 2025 and 2027. If the club were to dive head-first into a rebuild by trading both All-Stars away, it wouldn’t benefit anyone other than the balance sheet and the Spurs.
I am a Hawks fan. I want to see this team win a championship. To do that, they may have to take a couple of steps back before they can go forward. I can admit that, but I don’t want to watch a terrible product for 82 games a year either. I want my cake, and I want to eat it too, but that may not be possible.
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Photographer: Brian Rothmuller/Icon Sportswire
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