Trae Young drops hints on possibly leaving Hawks as trade rumors swirl

The six year relationship of Trae Young and the Atlanta Hawks appears to be on the rocks, and never before has it felt more like a break-up could be in play than it does right now. For months, the belief around the league was that if the Hawks postseason ended early, or if they missed the Playoffs altogether, big changes could be coming to A-Town. Now that this is precisely how Atlanta’s season ended, it feels more likely than not that soon enough, Trae Young will be traded.

Perhaps the last hurdle that would need to be cleared in order for a Trae Young trade to eventually come to fruition was acceptance of such a deal from Young himself. That’s not to say that Trae Young has a no trade clause — he doesn’t — but if he were hellbent on remaining a member of the Atlanta Hawks, he wouldn’t be saying the kind of things he did on the “From the Point” podcast today.

“Everybody knows like obviously I want to be in Atlanta. When I was drafted, that’s where I wanted to spend my whole career, but at the same time I want to win. So if we’re not on the same page and all, I want to win right now. I mean there’s times teams want to take their time and be slow with the winning process and it’s just like, I’m not there anymore. Like I want to win, and I’ve always been that way. I don’t feel like I have very much time to waste, and so I just want to continue to play at a high level and I feel like I can do that and play at a high level and win.”

Maybe I’m reading a little too deep here, but this feels like a very diplomatic way of saying, “I’m ready to be traded, please.” But here’s a question I think might be worth asking: are we sure that the Atlanta Hawks have been taking their time and being slow with the process of winning? Wasn’t the trade they made with the San Antonio Spurs for Dejounte Murray a “win-now” move? That’s not to say that it was the correct move to make, clearly it wasn’t, but there are certainly plenty of teams around the league who have made less of an effort to win in the short term than the Hawks.

In fairness to Trae Young, what he could be referring to is the position the Hawks find themselves in now. Because of the failed trade for Dejounte Murray, Atlanta essentially has no choice but to part ways with one of their two stars in order to recover some of the assets they gave up to bring Murray to Atlanta in the first place. And if that’s the case, then Trae Young isn’t the first, nor will he be the last in-his-prime star to want out of a rebuild.