{"id":74363,"date":"2024-04-21T20:42:19","date_gmt":"2024-04-22T00:42:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=74363"},"modified":"2024-04-21T20:42:19","modified_gmt":"2024-04-22T00:42:19","slug":"hawks-nba-insider-surprising-claim-trade-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/04\/21\/hawks-nba-insider-surprising-claim-trade-plans\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Insider Makes Surprising Claim About Hawks Trade Plans"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Atlanta Hawks enter the 2024 offseason with several pressing questions<\/a>. However, the main focus remains the backcourt pairing of Trae Young<\/a> and Dejounte Murray<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Two rail-thin lead guards with the potential to be primary playmakers, the fit between Young and Murray has gone about as well as expected. Offensively, their talents are undermined when asked to play off-ball. Defensively, neither can be relied upon to stop opposing point guards at the point of attack. Their lack of muscle mass prevents them from consistently guarding up the lineup.<\/p>\n

As a result, the Hawks are widely expected to trade one of Young or Murray this offseason.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a new idea as Atlanta was on the verge of trading Murray last summer before extending his contract. Entering the offseason, the Hawks front office was said to be monitoring Young\u2019s behavior due to concerns about his intangibles<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Yet, last year, Atlanta would have been expected to keep Young if given the chance. That may not be the case this time around.<\/p>\n

NBA Insider Makes Surprising Claim About Hawks Trade Plans<\/h2>\n

\u201cThey are going to try hard<\/a> to trade Trae Young. That\u2019s going to happen,\u201d NBC Sports insider Kurt Helin tells Sportnaut\u2019s Jason Burgos.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut from people I\u2019ve talked to around the league these calls often go something like this,\u201d he claims, \u201c\u2018Trae Young, yea, what would that [trade] look like? By the way, is Dejounte available?\u2019 People in the league just like Dejounte\u2019s game better.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere Trae Young doesn\u2019t defend, demands the ball; he scores a lot of points, gets a lot of assists, will bring your offense up \u2014 he\u2019s an All-Star [and] borderline All-NBA offensive player \u2014 but there\u2019s a sense that you can\u2019t really build a true winner around him.<\/p>\n

You could with Dejounte. They\u2019ve got to move one of them, it obviously doesn\u2019t work. But it\u2019s going to be interesting to see what they might ultimately have to settle for to move Trae.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To Helin\u2019s point, Young has proven more than Murray offensively.<\/p>\n

A three-time All-Star, Young is already the Hawks\u2019 all-time leader in career assists<\/a> and 3s. Averaging 25.5 points and 9.5 assists per game while shooting 35.5 percent from 3 since being drafted in 2018, he\u2019s been the driving force of Atlanta\u2019s offense for half a decade.<\/p>\n

Before being traded to the Hawks, Murray\u2019s best offensive season saw him averaging 21.1 points and 9.2 assists per game. That was in 2021-22, his sole All-Star season. However, while he\u2019s long been an efficient scorer, he\u2019s not a natural 3-point shooter. As a result, he shoots 45.8 percent from the field for his career but 34.5 percent from deep.<\/p>\n

Yet, in 2023-24, Murray made 36.3 percent of his long-distance attempts. It was his first season shooting above 36 percent from 3 since 2019-20. Reminding the NBA world about All-Star-caliber talent when Young was sidelined with a finger injury, he averaged 24.5 points and 8.7 assists per game after the All-Star Break.<\/p>\n

Though more keen on taking midrange jumpers than has become the norm, he\u2019s proven that he\u2019s capable of being a go-to player himself. When factoring in that he\u2019s a more reliable defender, in large part due to how well he uses his 6-foot-10 wingspan, it\u2019s not hard to see why he\u2019d be seen as easier to build around than Young.<\/p>\n

The Last Word on the Hawks Trade Plans<\/h3>\n

Ultimately, the Hawks should hold onto Murray.<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t the popular choice for many Hawks fans given the special moments that he\u2019s had with the franchise. However, business is business and Atlanta is in the business of building a championship-contender. At this juncture, it\u2019s become clear that the best way for them to do that is trading Young or Murray.<\/p>\n

Of the two, Murray has surprisingly emerged as the better option.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Atlanta Hawks enter the 2024 offseason with several pressing questions. However, the main focus remains the backcourt pairing of Trae Young and Dejounte Murray. Two rail-thin lead guards with the potential to be primary playmakers, the fit between Young and Murray has gone about as well as expected. Offensively, their talents are undermined when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":74367,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1608,62,3,4721],"tags":[1262,4557,4774,1349],"class_list":["post-74363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hawks","category-basketball","category-nba","category-news","category-trade-rumors","tag-dejounte-murray","tag-nba-offseason","tag-rumors","tag-trae-young"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}