The Trae Young Trade

Shams broke the news on Wednesday night:

• Wizards receive: Trae Young
• Hawks receive: CJ McCollum, Corey Kispert

I'm on the road right now, so here are some very brief, very stream-of-consciousness thoughts on the deal. I'll have a lot more to say on the next podcast with Mo and will be sure to link to that pod in whatever newsletter comes out after we record it.

• This is a nice buy-low opportunity for the Wizards. They gave up nothing of real consequence to their future for an All-Star-caliber point guard who has shown he can be the engine of a top 10 offense when everything is going well. Young has his (very obvious) flaws, but he's still a really good player and they got him without surrendering any real assets. (I did find it interesting that they also didn't acquire any assets to take on his contract, which had been rumored for a few days. The back-and-forth over which team would have to give up an asset in the deal is something I expected to continue over the next month or so, so I was somewhat surprised it came together as quickly as it did, with neither team giving up any draft compensation.) That said, for this to remain a "buy low," the have to be careful not to go overboard in committing to their future around Young. It will be very interesting to see what the contract extension negotiations look like here, if the Wizards are willing to give him one.
• It's worth noting that the Wiz essentially turned Bradley Beal into Young, plus six second-round picks, four first-round swaps, and an additional first-round pick. They sent Beal out for the swaps and seconds along with Chris Paul, turned CP3 into Jordan Poole and a first, sent Poole out in the deal that netted McCollum, and now shipped McCollum out for Young. There was more to each of those deals but you get the idea. That's pretty nice work by Michael Winger and Will Dawkins, especially considering that Beal had a no-trade clause at the time they sent him out. As I wrote over the summer, I'm a fan of what the Wizards have been doing, asset management-wise, lately.
• For all his faults, Young remains one of the game's elite passers. The youths the Wizards are building around — Alex Sarr, Kyshawn George, Bilal Coulibaly, Tre Johnson, and more — are not lead ball-handlers, and they clearly need someone to put them in position to succeed. It remains to be seen how Young will mesh with them, obviously, but they should all get the ball in better spots than they have been getting it throughout their careers, whenever Young deigns to pass it off. We'll see how much they like playing with him over the long term when it comes to how he tends to monopolize possession of the rock, but in the short term they should all appreciate how much easier he'll make life for them. They can all slide into more defined roles and expand their skill sets from there, rather than having to stretch beyond their capabilities as they have occasionally been asked to over the last year-plus.
• The Wizards will presumably want to stop being terrible at some point, but they will also want to make sure their top-eight protected first-round pick doesn't convey to the Knicks this year. How they balance that down the stretch is going to be worth watching. They also still have a bunch of cap room this summer and could be mildly interesting next year if they land one of the top guys in the draft, along with Young (if he picks up his player option or they sign him to a new deal) and their cadre of prospects. (I do wonder what happens here if Young opts out and leaves for nothing in return, which I kind of doubt but is still obviously possible. They did clear an additional $13 million or so in cap room in the event that happens by including Kispert in the deal.)
• The Hawks are and have been Jalen Johnson's team. That's a good thing. They're going to be big and fast and flexible and physical and fun. Let's go.
• The Hawks going to be better on defense than they were, for obvious reasons. They've been a borderline top-10 defense in the minutes Trae has been off the court this year, via PBP Stats tracking. I'm interested to see how Quin Snyder structures the rotation, but I would never have a lineup without at least one of Dyson Daniels and Nickeil Alexander-Walker out there on the floor. Keep a high-level point-of-attack defender out there at all times. I especially want one of them out there whenever McCollum is on the court, but they're also going to share the floor for significant minutes whenever the starters are in the game. (I've also wanted one of those guys out there at all times throughout this season and that hasn't happened because the Hawks have played some Keaton Wallace lineups, so we'll see what happens. Either way, the Wallace minutes — and more — should be going to McCollum now, which is good for the offense and probably bad for the defense.)
• Atlanta is presumably going to share the ball-handling responsibility between a whole bunch of different guys: Johnson, McCollum, Daniels, Alexander-Walker, and maybe more. It'll be interesting to see how not having an apex-level individual creator affects the offense, though we have obviously seen some of what that looks like this season. McCollum is really going to help them on that front, I think. Having someone who can hit pull-up jumpers is just so important these days. And being able to use Kispert as a roaming sniper in the same way they use Vit Krejci is going to help, as well. Having a pair of "uh-oh it's very bad that we left him open" shooters with which to terrorize defenses is going to be a fun thing for Snyder to work with.
• I wonder if the Hawks will spin McCollum's contract off in some other deal between now and the deadline. Having approximately $30 million in expiring money ain't nothing. I know there have been Anthony Davis rumors, but I'm not sure that's the direction I'd go if I were them. Whatever they do, though, they should not be trading that Pelicans/Bucks pick, obviously.