{"id":710956,"date":"2026-06-18T06:36:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T06:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/710956\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T06:36:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T06:36:09","slug":"report-trae-young-plans-to-decline-48-97m-player-option","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/710956\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Trae Young plans to decline $48.97M player option"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Washington Wizards guard Trae Young is expected to decline his $48.97 million player option for the 2026-27 season, ESPN\u2019s Marc Spears reported Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">The four-time All-Star guard will now become an unrestricted free agent on Monday. Spears reported that Young loves the team in D.C. and that Washington remains the \u201cfront runner,\u201d which aligns with <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/JakeLFischer\/status\/2066706287589474709?s=20\" rel=\"nofollow\">Jake Fischer\u2019s report <\/a>that \u201cthe expectation remains that Young will find a new, longer-term agreement with the Wizards.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Young is eligible to sign a four-year, $212.9 million contract in free agency. If he re-signs with the Wizards, that maximum contract jumps to five years at $288 million.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Young, 27, was acquired by Washington in a January trade that sent CJ McCollum and Corey Kispert to the Atlanta Hawks. The nine-year veteran averaged 15.2 points and 6.2 assists while shooting 59.5% from the field across five appearances with the Wizards last season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Young missed 67 games due to several injuries, most notably a quad contusion and an MCL sprain that forced him to miss nearly two months following the trade. Back irritation and another quad contusion caused Young to miss the team\u2019s final 15 contests.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Michael Winger revealed on the <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/wizards-president-on-the-no-1-pick-wemby-the-spurs\/id1845980031?i=1000767626634\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ryen Russillo Show<\/a> that Washington\u2019s front office ranked Young as the top 2026 free agent. Rather than wait for Young to decline his player option and test free agency, the Wizards used their abundance of cap space to acquire him via trade.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">\u201cWe had two avenues to add proven talent: draft and free agency. You look at the free agent prospects in the 2026 offseason, and we had a ton of cap space. At the time, we were scheduled to have $85 million in room,\u201d Winger said. \u201cIt was our opinion that Trae Young was the best free agent on the board \u2026 We got into friendly, professional conversations with the Hawks that escalated quickly, and we ended up trading for Trae Young.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Wizards general manager Will Dawkins applauded Young\u2019s court vision and said the organization acquired him to serve as the team\u2019s floor general.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">\u201cYou just see the playmaking, the scoring, the presence that he has for naturally moving and sharing the ball,\u201d Dawkins said in March.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Dawkins praised Young\u2019s desire to be in Washington \u2014 a feeling Young shared on a recent appearance on \u201cThe Pivot\u201d podcast.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">\u201cI wanted to go [to Washington],\u201d Young said. \u201cIt\u2019s not like [Atlanta] just shipped me to Washington. Because that wasn\u2019t the case.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">If he re-signs, Young projects as Washington\u2019s starting point guard alongside Anthony Davis and Alex Sarr. That leaves openings in the team\u2019s starting unit for two of the following players: Kyshawn George, Bilal Coulibaly, Tre Johnson and whoever Washington selects with the No. 1 pick.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Washington Wizards guard Trae Young is expected to decline his $48.97 million player option for the 2026-27 season,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":710957,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[99,306605],"class_list":["post-710956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-sports","tag-washington-wizards-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710956","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=710956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/710957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=710956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=710956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=710956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}