The Atlanta Hawks fan base is in a collective sports mourning as we witnessed one yesterday evening: Trae Young was traded from the team to the Washington Wizards for CJ McCollum and Corey Kispert.
Young has been the engine of the Hawks organization ever since he was drafted in 2018, leading the franchise to the closest it's been to the NBA Finals since the team arrived in Atlanta. The Hawks with Young were a team full of possibilities and potential that wasn't fully realized because of injuries to both Young and his teammates, as well as poor roster fits for several years following the 2021 playoff run.
Between the notion of a stringent CBA agreement that penalizes NBA players for making too much money (and teams for trying to pay them) and the dawn of a positionless era in the NBA that seems a bit premature, Onsi Saleh and the front office decided it was best to move on from Young and build around skill and size with Jalen Johnson at the helm of the team.
A lot of Hawks fans are despondent. They don't know what's next or whether the team will ever reach the championship potential Trae Young brought to the organization in the 2021 playoffs. Although the pick swap between the Bucks and the Pelicans is a vital asset and could very well turn into the number one pick, the future is still unknown. With a free agent class this summer that isn't that strong and a lack of real trade movement in the NBA due to the new financial rules, many Hawks fans wonder what's the next move for this team.
It's clear that if Young were to be traded, Saleh is set to make a big move. For weeks, we've known that current Mavericks forward Anthony Davis has been linked to the Hawks. It seems Saleh is committed to building a team around Jalen Johnson that emphasizes size and defense, in line with other contenders in the NBA, such as the Thunder, the Spurs, and even the Knicks.
If this is the decision that Saleh has made, there's no doubt in my mind that he is going to make a trade for Davis. It's the only thing that makes sense: to move off Young's salary to create another spot where he can get a star who fits the philosophy of the team he wants to build. It would be a massive failure if the Hawks leave the deadline and Anthony Davis isn't in Atlanta.
Many Hawks fans are nervous about Davis's durability and if he'll be able to stay healthy to be the defensive anchor and front-court offensive star that we've seen him be, both with the Pelicans when he first got into the league and at a championship level with the Lakers before he was traded to the Mavericks last February.
But at this point, acquiring Davis is a risk you have to take, and I'm buying into the future that Jalen Johnson is poised to deliver. You have to surround Johnson with the Hall of Fame-level talent in Davis that Young never got the opportunity to play with during his eight years in Atlanta.
You have to lose to win again
Because of this, you have to rip off the Band-Aid. You have to make a trade that might confuse the fan base even more, but if it works, it could put you truly in contention for a championship and in the mix as the best team in the NBA. I worked the FansPo trade machine, and I came up with this trade:
In my trade, Kristaps Porziņģis and his expiring contract head to the Mavericks along with Zaccharie Risacher, the 2026 first-round pick swap between San Antonio, Cleveland, Minnesota, and Utah, and the 2027 pick swap between New Orleans and Milwaukee.
In exchange, the Hawks get Anthony Davis, an expiring contract in Dante Exum, and another expiring contract in Brandon Williams. Exum and Williams are thrown in to make sure that the financial math works, and Exum could prove to be an adept guard with the size and skill to play in a Quin Snyder offense for the rest of the duration of his contract.
I understand that Hawks fans, and even the Hawks' front office, don't want to trade Risacher. I get that it's only been one full season that he's been an Atlanta Hawk, and fans see the upside of what he could be if Snyder and the coaching staff fully unleash him.
But not much makes sense when you trade your franchise player with the sole intent of building cap space because you don't want to pay for the money he earned, given a sample size of games in which he wasn't able to participate due to an injury-management minutes restriction. You have to make a big, bold move to maintain the continuity and to give the Hawks fans something to look forward to and hope for.
If things go well enough, you now have Anthony Davis locked in and can extend him. You still have the 2026 Pelicans-Bucks pick swap available that could put you in position to get a blue-chip prospect like AJ Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson, Cameron Boozer, or Caleb Wilson. This allows you to build upon the stars you have on the roster now while bringing in players who fit the Hawks' timeline and can grow with Jalen Johnson as he enters his prime.
This is the trade the Hawks must make, because if the trade deadline comes around and nothing happens, a lot of fans are going to lose faith. With how the NBA trade season goes, especially in the final hours heading into the deadline, who's to say that a player like Davis won't get acquired by the Raptors, who are looking to field a contender this year, or the Pistons, who sit atop the Eastern Conference and believe they have a team that can contend against the Thunder or any team in the West?
Nothing makes sense for the Atlanta Hawks right now. Onsi Saleh and the front office have to trust the vision and go all-in on building a sizable, defensive-minded team centered around a young, rising star in Jalen Johnson that can raise their floor and put them in contention for the next few seasons.
