The Atlanta Hawks have seemingly been treading water for several seasons now. Ever since Atlanta made a surprise run to the 2021 Eastern Conference Finals, the Hawks haven’t advanced past the first round of the playoffs.
Plus, the Hawks recently missed the playoffs for the second season in a row. Atlanta qualified for the play-in tournament but was bounced out of the tournament by the Miami Heat.
Despite the fact that the Hawks have been plagued by mediocrity for a significant amount of time and missed the 2025 NBA Playoffs, trade chatter surrounding star guard Trae Young has reportedly died down quite a bit compared to all of the chatter about his future in Atlanta at the end of last season.
“Questions about their futures with their current teams are already in circulation and it’s not even May yet,” Marc Stein and Jake Fischer wrote. “Atlanta’s Trae Young? The noise on that front, compared to the chatter bubbling in Atlanta after the Hawks’ 2023-24 season ended, has noticeably quieted down.”
Last year, a report surfaced from Bleacher Report’s Eric Pincus indicating that many sources around the league thought Young would be traded that summer if the Hawks could find a buyer, yet he’s still with the team one year later.
But former NBA guard Jeff Teague recently floated the Heat as a hypothetical trade destination for Young and claimed that Miami needs one more piece. Teague’s take about Miami needing another piece has aged well so far in the 2025 NBA Playoffs, as the Heat are in a 0-3 hole in their first-round series against the Cleveland Cavaliers and could get eliminated with a loss in Monday’s Game 4.
If the Hawks hold onto Young for the foreseeable future, they could be stuck in NBA purgatory for quite a long time. Forwards Zaccharie Risacher and Jalen Johnson along with guard Dyson Daniels are all promising young players, but none of them stand out as superstars in the making. Risacher, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 NBA Draft, averaged 12.6 points per game in his inaugural NBA season.
Time will tell how much longer Young will last as a member of the Hawks, but it would maybe be in the best interest of Atlanta’s future to part ways with the floor general sooner rather than later and embrace a full-blown rebuild. Young is under contract through the 2025-26 season and has a player option for the 2026-27 campaign.
