Jake Fischer reported in the Stein Line Substack<\/a> that the Nets and Timberwolves were preferred landing spots, but neither team pursued him.\u00a0<\/p>\nBrooklyn committed to a rebuild in 2024 when Marks and team owner Joe Tsai traded Mikal Bridges to the Knicks for a record-tying five first-round draft picks. And they haven\u2019t shied away from the painful process, selecting a record five first-round picks this past June.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At the time, everything Marks both said and did underscored Brooklyn\u2019s desire for youth, length, multipositional defense and egalitarian ball-moving offense.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Young is many things, but none of the aforementioned are his strengths.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFollow all the basketball buzz in Brooklyn\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Nets by Brian Lewis, exclusively on Sports+.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
A box office draw who led the league in assists last season, Young is also undersized and a defensive liability who makes $46 million this season, has a $49 million player option for the next and has not driven winning of late.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Atlanta is 15-13 without Young this season and a disappointing 2-8 with him \u2014 and that is effectively 1-8 because he hurt his MCL just seven minutes into the Hawks\u2019 victory in Brooklyn. Young\u2019s CAA agents \u2014 Aaron Mintz, Austin Brown and Drew Morrison \u2014 are working with Atlanta general manager Onsi Saleh to find the 27-year-old a landing spot.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Nets had the best defense in the league in December, and also have Michael Porter Jr., a longtime friend Young calls his \u201cbrother.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Brooklyn](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/20260107BRNVORL00323RS.jpg\")
Michael Porter Jr. shoots a 3-pointer during the Nets\u2019 104-103 overtime loss to the Magic on Jan. 7, 2026
at Barclays Center. Robert Sabo for NY Post<\/p>\n
They roomed together playing AAU basketball with MOKAN Elite, for whom they won the Peach Jam EYBL Championship. The pair have been close ever since, Young calling Porter \u201cthe best player in the world at that size\u201d this past offseason and predicting the Nets star would average 25 points.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Brooklyn would have needed to part with a hefty contract to even make a deal for Young work, like that of Porter or starting center Nic Claxton or Terance Mann. It\u2019s easy to see why the Nets were more appealing to Young than he was to them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Still, following the Big 3\u2019s breakup \u2014 James Harden, Kyrie Irving and finally Kevin Durant all forcing exits from Brooklyn \u2014 there were questions about the Nets\u2019 attractiveness. In the aftermath of Mikal Bridges\u2019 departure, those questions got far louder.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But at least one perennial All-Star wanted Brooklyn, even if they didn\u2019t want him.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Though with Brooklyn hoping to have a very short tank that ends this summer \u2014 looking to take a step forward next season \u2014 being attractive to established veterans and high-end talent is an auspicious sign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trae Young initially wanted Brooklyn.\u00a0 The Nets definitely didn\u2019t want him.\u00a0 Atlanta ended up trading Young to Washington…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93380,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,355,99,4600,21,9,24,63,319,14713],"class_list":{"0":"post-93379","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn","8":"tag-brooklyn","9":"tag-brooklyn-headlines","10":"tag-brooklyn-nets","11":"tag-brooklyn-news","12":"tag-michael-porter-jr","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-city","16":"tag-nyc","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-trae-young"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Atlanta](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/AP_Heat_Hawks_Basketball_34936-98546-0.jpg\")
Trae Young, who was traded to the Wizards on Wednesday, shoots past Davion Mitchell (45) during the Hawks\u2019 blowout loss to the Heat on Dec. 26, 2025, in Atlanta. AP<\/p>\n