Temperatures in the Atlanta, Georgia metroplex this morning were a brisk 52 degrees, ironically 11 degrees cooler than Sunday morning, and tomorrow is supposed to get even chillier as we approach Opening Day of the 2025–26 NBA basketball season.
How much colder is it inside the offices and locker room at State Farm Arena?
And is this cold just an anomaly of tradewinds? Or are we seeing pre-cursors of ‘trade’ winds starting to swirl?
It’s safe to say that “Ice” Trae Young is getting the cold shoulder as he starts his eighth NBA season as a career-long member of the Atlanta Hawks, his final guaranteed with the franchise on his current contract.
As of this writing, the Hawks obviously have every intention of letting Young play out this final year with no overtures of loyalty – while others with less experience and name recognition get extensions that they may not have earned yet.
- Teammate Dyson Daniels got some of that Atlanta cheese, inking a four year, $100 million deal, despite being a Hawk for all of 76 games – Young has had appeared in 483 games over seven years
- Christian Braun signed a five year, $125 million deal with the Denver Nuggets
- Sacramento has given Keegan Murray a five year, $140 million extension
- The Portland Trail Blazers have extended Shaedon Sharpe to the tune of four years and $90 million, and Toumani Camara got four years and $82 million after Portland finished last season with a dismal 36-46 record
- A.J. Green has moved it on up in Milwaukee to get a four year, $5 million deal
- And, of course, Kevin Durant nailed down a two year, $90 million agreement with the Houston Rockets
What do Durant and Braun have despite being on opposite ends of the talent spectrum with Young in the middle of them?
Championship rings.
The closest Young got the Hawks was the Eastern Conference Finals against the Milwaukee Bucks in 2021. You may recall, Young put that team on his back and valiantly fought through adversity, fatigue, and injury, only to bow out at the highest apex he would achieve in his seven years.
He averaged 28 points, 6.8 assists, and 3.3 rebounds through those four games, and the Hawks repaid him by getting him ‘help’ in the form(s) of No. 16 pick A.J. Griffin in 2022, Kobe Bufkin in 2023, and Zaccharie Rissacher last year.
- A.J. Griffin – 7.5 points, 1.9 rebounds, 0.8 assists
- Kobe Bufkin – 5.0 points, 2.0 rebounds, 1.6 assists
- Zaccharie Risacher – 12.6 points, 3.6 rebounds, 1.2 assists
They also added an odd pairing backcourt teammate in Dejounte Murray in 2022, which seemed like a cannibalization of Young’s offense and a front office assessment of possibly entertaining a move of Young out of Atlanta, based on results.
The Murray Effect was Young falling 2.2 points per game in 2022-23 and failing to make the All Star team, as he had in 2021-22. Young’s point production would fall by another .5 margin to 25.7 in 2023-24, and to 24.2 last season, though his assists ticked upward over the last three seasons from 10.2 to 11.6 per game.
Young hasn’t been the same since the Murray experiment (Murray has now been moved on to the New Orleans Pelicans), which is where Daniels came in and made his impact last season. Daniels worked his tail off with a Most Improved nod, 14.1 ppg and complemented the evolution of Jalen Johnson, who was only available for 36 games, but pumped in 18.9 points and 10 caroms a night.
Factor in that 10 Atlanta players averaged in double digits last season, that’s a lot of cannibalization of Young’s production in what seems like a whirlwind audition of who’s going to stay and who’s not going to survive.
Also consider the strength of Atlanta’s roster rookies – Georgia’s Asa Newell and Kentucky’s Lamont Butler – along with new additions Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Kristaps Porzingis, and Luke Kennard, and the presumed continued improvement of Johnson and Daniels, and one wonders where and if Young still fits in.
- Kristaps Porzingis (2024-25) – 19.5 points, 6.8 rebounds, 2.1 assists
- Luke Kennard (2024-25) – 8.9 points. 2.8 rebounds, 3.3 assists
- Nickeil Alexander Walker (2024-25) – 9.4 points, 3.2 rebounds, 2.7 assists
The front office has also gone from Travis Schlenk to Landry Fields to Onsi Saleh, all guys who were/are trying to make their name(s) by tinkering with the roster.
Schlenk was the general manager who drafted Luka Doncic at No. 3 in the 2018 Draft and then swapped him for Young (No. 5) because the Hawks needed to add another lottery pick, who turned out to be Cam Reddish, who was one year and five picks later.
Ironically, Reddish is now Doncic’s teammate with the Los Angeles Lakers, after being traded three times. Nice move, Travis … not.
On that note, Doncic’s apex has actually been to the NBA Finals, and not because he had a StubHub account.
His Dallas Mavericks fell 4-1 to the Boston Celtics in the 2024 NBA Finals, and that summer would usher in rumors of weight gain, conditioning, etc. that caused the near-exile of general manager Nico Hammond, as he subsequently moved Doncic to L.A. to play alongside Reddish … and (now, this year) the No. 1 pick from that 2018 draft class, Deandre Ayton … and some legendary guy named LeBron James.
It was heavily rumored/fantasized/wished that the Lakers would make a play for Young to give James one final push for a championship he could retire on.
While that never happened, obviously, no one’s ruled it out 100 percent just yet.
Not to mention that Young has been rumored to be an option for the New York Knicks, the Houston Rockets, the Utah Jazz, the Brooklyn Nets, and even the Sacramento Kings – although that has been shut down t\with the Kings’ signing of former Hawk Dennis Schroder (three years, $45 million) and former MVP Russell Westbrook (non-guaranteed contract).
What should really be in consideration is a rumored move to the NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder (for, say, Isaiah Hartenstein and Luguentz Dort?) … after all, Young is the assistant general manager for the men’s basketball team at the University of Oklahoma, where he played his college basketball.
Why not jump on the bandwagon? Doncic is riding James’ (or actually, vice versa now) – Why not Shai, Trae, and Jay?
And Oklahoma City – along with all of the aforementioned cities – are much, much warmer to Ice Trae than Atlanta is being right now.
Brrrrrrrrrr – ing it on.
Another Day, Another Opportunity.
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Tracy ‘T-Money’ Graven is the Senior NBA Analyst for BackSportsPage.com owner of TMoneyMedia.com and also has his posts on SubStack at allballs.substack.com
He has written the NBA, appeared as a guest on NBA Radio, and the last 25+ years for HoopsWorld, Swish Magazine, HoopsHype, the Coach Scott Fields Show, NBARadioShow.com, and also tackles the NFL and NCAA.
He’s spent 25+ years in locker rooms in Orlando, Boise (CBA, G League), San Antonio, Phoenix, Denver, Oklahoma City, and Atlanta.
He has raised five kids, and now currently resides in the heart of SEC Country near Knoxville, Tennessee – home of the 2024 Men’s Baseball World Series Champion Tennessee Volunteers.
Reach him on Twitter at @RealTMoneyMedia
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