{"id":398453,"date":"2026-01-07T22:37:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T22:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/398453\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T22:37:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T22:37:09","slug":"sources-hawks-trae-young-has-wizards-as-top-trade-destination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/398453\/","title":{"rendered":"Sources: Hawks’ Trae Young has Wizards as top trade destination"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Shams CharaniaJan 8, 2026, 06:56 AM<\/p>\n

Close<\/a>Shams Charania is a senior NBA insider for ESPN. Charania reports NBA news and information across ESPN platforms and also contributes to ESPN’s exclusive coverage of the NBA draft. Charania has previously worked for FanDuel TV, Stadium, The Athletic, Yahoo Sports, RealGM and ChicagoNow. He is a Chicago native and graduated from Loyola University in 2017.<\/p>\n

Atlanta Hawks<\/a> star Trae Young<\/a> has the Washington Wizards<\/a> as his preferred destination as the player and his current team work together on a possible trade, sources tell ESPN.<\/p>\n

Young’s agents, Aaron Mintz, Drew Morrison and Austin Brown, continue to have conversations with the Hawks about a resolution toward a trade out of Atlanta, sources said. The team is in active trade talks on multiple fronts, those sources said.<\/p>\n

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Atlanta is working to trade Young, who has a $49 million player option in the offseason that would make him an expiring contract. He could also opt out in the offseason, leave as a free agent and give the Hawks almost $40 million in cap space.<\/p>\n

Young has been the face of the Hawks’ franchise since he was drafted in 2018 and sits as the team’s career leader in 3-pointers and assists. He has led Atlanta to the postseason three times in his eight years, including a run to the Eastern Conference finals in 2021.<\/p>\n

But the Hawks appear poised to turn the page to a new era with the emergence this season of forward Jalen Johnson<\/a>, who is averaging 23.7 points, 10.4 rebounds and 8.4 assists in 34 games, and free agent acquisition Nickeil Alexander-Walker<\/a>, who is averaging a career-high 20.5 points in 36 appearances.<\/p>\n

Young has dealt with leg injuries this season that have limited him to only 10 games.<\/p>\n

Young, who dealt with a right MCL sprain early in the season and has managed residual pain from the injury, is currently sidelined with a right quad contusion that has caused him to sit out the past five games.<\/p>\n

An All-NBA selection in 2021-22, Young has career averages of 25.2 points and 9.8 assists. He led the league in assists last season with 11.6 per game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shams CharaniaJan 8, 2026, 06:56 AM CloseShams Charania is a senior NBA insider for ESPN. Charania reports NBA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":398454,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-398453","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}