{"id":397454,"date":"2026-01-09T15:37:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T15:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/397454\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T15:37:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T15:37:07","slug":"trae-young-looks-forward-to-another-opportunity-with-wizards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/397454\/","title":{"rendered":"Trae Young looks forward to &#8216;another opportunity&#8217; with Wizards"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>All-Star guard <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/player\/_\/id\/4277905\/trae-young\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Trae Young<\/a> addressed his departure from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/team\/_\/name\/atl\/atlanta-hawks\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Hawks<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/TheTraeYoung\/status\/2009628188453007408\" rel=\"nofollow\">on social media<\/a> Friday, lamenting never getting to &#8220;see our full potential&#8221; in Atlanta and adding that he is &#8220;ecstatic&#8221; for the next chapter.<\/p>\n<p>Young spent seven-plus seasons with the Hawks but pushed for a trade to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/team\/_\/name\/wsh\/washington-wizards\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Washington Wizards<\/a> through talks between his agents and Atlanta general manager Onsi Saleh.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The last few years weren&#8217;t how I wanted them to be,&#8221; Young wrote. &#8220;Expectations that we created for ourselves, reaching heights that Atlanta has never reached before.<\/p>\n<p>Editor&#8217;s Picks<\/p>\n<p>2 Related<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Bringing a championship to Atlanta was always my goal. However, between the injuries, the setbacks, and situations that didn&#8217;t make sense, we never truly got to see our full potential.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Young&#8217;s move to the Wizards has not been announced, but sources told ESPN&#8217;s Shams Charania this week that Young is heading to Washington for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/player\/_\/id\/2490149\/cj-mccollum\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">CJ McCollum<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/player\/_\/id\/4280151\/corey-kispert\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Corey Kispert<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Young, who has $95 million remaining on his deal, including a player option for 2026-27, wrote that he was willing to take a chance outside Atlanta.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The pain of staying the same eventually outweighed the uncertainty of change. Change is often met with fear, but I see it as another opportunity,&#8221; he wrote.<\/p>\n<p>He leaves Atlanta as the franchise leader in 3-pointers (1,295) and assists (4,837). He led the Hawks to the postseason three times, including a run to the Eastern Conference finals in 2021.<\/p>\n<p>Young, who dealt with a right MCL sprain early in the season and has managed residual pain from the injury, has been sidelined recently because of a right quad contusion. The Wizards are not expected to have immediate extension talks with Young, and both sides will evaluate his health once he arrives in Washington, sources told Charania.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m walking into this next chapter ecstatic, with my head high and my eyes forward,&#8221; Young concluded in his post. &#8220;It&#8217;s time to see what&#8217;s possible when the support is real and vision is clear. We move.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All-Star guard Trae Young addressed his departure from the Hawks on social media Friday, lamenting never getting to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397455,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-397454","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-nba","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}