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Kevin Pelton
One month out from the NBA trade deadline on Feb. 5, the NBA saw its first trade. The Atlanta Hawks traded star point guard Trae Young to the Washington Wizards for CJ McCollum and Corey Kispert, sources told ESPN’s Shams Charania on Wednesday.
The Hawks’ decision to move on from the four-time All-Star comes in the middle of his eighth season in Atlanta, as they are choosing instead to build around their young core of Jalen Johnson, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Dyson Daniels, Onyeka Okongwu and Zaccharie Risacher.
Now that the Hawks and Wizards have officially kicked off trade season, we’ll grade all sides of the NBA’s major deals and break down the ramifications for all teams and players involved.
Atlanta Hawks get:
G CJ McCollum
F Corey Kispert
Washington Wizards get:
G Trae Young
Grade for Atlanta: B
Less than five years ago, the Hawks reached the 2021 conference finals behind a star-making performance from Young, who averaged 28.8 PPG and 9.5 APG in the playoffs at age 22. It seemed like the start of a run for Atlanta, which had just one key player older than 27. Instead, the Young-era Hawks had already peaked.
Quickly eliminated from the playoffs in 2022 and 2023, Atlanta has yet to get back. The Hawks opened this season with high expectations after adding Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Kristaps Porzingis, but Atlanta went 2-8 in the 10 games Young played this season, leading to this franchise-altering deal.
The Hawks defending better with Young on the bench is certainly nothing new. That’s been the case throughout his career. According to Cleaning the Glass data, which filters out garbage time, 2022-23 is the only season the Hawks haven’t allowed at least two points per 100 possessions more with Young on the court than on the bench.
Historically, that’s been counterbalanced by the enormous boost Young provides the Atlanta offense. Flipping that stat, 2023-24 is the only season Atlanta hasn’t scored at least five more points per 100 possessions offensively with Young on the court. That actually hasn’t changed at all this season, despite the emergence of Jalen Johnson as an All-Star. The Hawks are scoring 9.2 more points per 100 possessions with Young, which ranks in the 95th percentile leaguewide.
The issue is twofold: Atlanta is defending better with Young on the bench, and much worse with him on the court.
The latter factor is probably random noise. Based on GeniusIQ’s quantified shot probability measure (qSP), which measures the expected effective field goal percentage (eFG%) given the location and type of shot, distance of nearby defenders and player ability, Hawks opponents get slightly better shots when Young plays. Atlanta’s qSP on defense goes from 54% without Young, which would rank 12th in the league, to 56.6% with him. That would rank 29th, ahead of only the New Orleans Pelicans.
Still, the actual shooting difference without Young is more than three times larger. Hawks opponents shoot a 63% eFG% with Young on the court and just 54% with him on the bench. The shot quality differential is more in line with Young’s typical defensive impact, and the shotmaking is likely a fluke.
The bigger factor going forward is that Atlanta has found a way to survive without Young. The Hawks’ minus-0.4 net rating this season is their best when Young sits at any point in his career. And although that kind of break-even play is not good enough to escape the play-in, remember that it comes with zero contributions from Young’s roster spot. Replacing him with McCollum should help the Hawks be more competitive the rest of the season.
The Atlanta offense has still ranked around league average so long as Johnson has been on the court. It’s when the Hawks play with neither Johnson nor Young that their offense craters to 107.8 points per 100 possessions according to Cleaning the Glass, which ranks in the 7th percentile leaguewide.
Starting guards Alexander-Walker and Dyson Daniels supply enough playmaking in concert with Johnson as a point forward to keep the Atlanta offense flowing. But without a third capable ballhandler in the backcourt, the Hawks’ second units have struggled badly. McCollum should lift those groups.
In particular, Atlanta will benefit from McCollum’s ability to create his own shot. According to GeniusIQ, he has shot an effective 51.5% on half-court shots that are neither an assist opportunity nor a putback. Onyeka Okongwu (50.5%) is the only player on the Hawks above 46% eFG% on at least 50 such attempts, and his shot volume is nearly as high as McCollum’s.
There might be a role for Kispert, too, although his skill set overlaps with that of Atlanta reserve Luke Kennard. Kispert is a more capable defender and younger at 26. He’s under contract through 2028-29, whereas Kennard is on a one-year deal.
Looking forward, this trade gives Atlanta the ability to reshape its roster. The Hawks no longer have any player making more than $31 million at any point during his contract. They can re-sign or extend McCollum (and potentially Porzingis, depending on his health) and have ample flexibility to add to the roster this summer without threatening the luxury tax.
In the longer term, Atlanta is betting on the development of Johnson — a good bet to make his All-Star debut — and the draft picks the team has coming to supply needed shot creation. The Hawks have the better of first-round picks this year from the Milwaukee Bucks and Pelicans thanks to their trade on 2025 draft night.
Only the Indiana Pacers have a worse record than the Pelicans, and the Bucks would also be in the lottery if the season ended today. Projections using ESPN’s Basketball Power Index give Atlanta the No. 1 pick via that trade in 15% of simulations.
If the Hawks can find another star through the draft, they’ve collected enough quality role players with an emphasis on defense to build around them better than they could Young. That offers hope for a new era in Atlanta.
Surely, the Hawks hoped they could get some pick value in return for Young. That Atlanta was willing to make this deal without any reflects how difficult the trade market is for max-level players who aren’t inner-circle stars. Given that reality, the Hawks not having to include picks to incentivize taking on Young’s 2026-27 player option isn’t such a bad thing.
Grade for Washington: B
Since hiring Michael Winger and Will Dawkins to lead their front office in 2023, the Wizards have been one of the NBA’s most patient teams, accumulating young talent without a clear path toward competing for a playoff spot. Trading for Young is a course correction that signals Washington is heading into a new phase of its rebuild.
It would be interesting to know how much the Wizards’ recent success played into that decision. Since starting the season 1-15, Washington has gone 9-10, including five wins in the past seven games. That might have suggested to Wizards management that simply playing out the season and collecting another lottery pick was no longer a certainty because they owe their pick to the New York Knicks if it falls outside the top eight.
More broadly, Washington might be at the point where supporting the development of its young talent — most notably starters Bilal Coulibaly, Kyshawn George and Alex Sarr, all of them 22 or younger — with capable veterans is appropriate. We’ve seen how that accelerated the progress of the Houston Rockets and Detroit Pistons in recent seasons.
I’m not sure Young is a natural fit in that role. He’s an outstanding passer who led the NBA with 11.6 APG last season, but that came in the context of Young dominating the ball in a way the veterans Houston and Detroit added did not.
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Young’s 5.7 minutes time of possession this season, per GeniusIQ tracking on NBA Advanced Stats, is more than McCollum (4.5) in fewer minutes per game. He has held the ball approximately 41% of the time the Hawks have been on offense, as compared with approximately 29% for McCollum with the Wizards. Fred VanVleet, the point guard Houston added at a similar stage, had approximately 35% time of possession during his first season with the Rockets.
Given Coulibaly, George and Sarr will likely end up primarily in off-ball roles, that might work out if they’re OK handling the ball less. Young will be a more dangerous pick-and-roll playmaker than Washington has had since prime John Wall. The Wizards are 25th in points per chance off pick-and-rolls this season. Young ranked 12th in 2024-25 in points per chance among ballhandlers who received at least 1,000 screens.
The trickier fit is Young with second-year guard Bub Carrington, who has played both on and off the ball in his NBA career. Adding Young might push Carrington more toward shooting guard, where Washington already has rookie lottery pick Tre Johnson.
More than anything else, this is probably a value play for the Wizards. Despite his defensive limitations, Young is still a four-time All-Star because of the way he lifted Atlanta offensively. Young picking up his $49 million player option for 2026-27 — perhaps in the context of an extension beyond next season — won’t be an issue for a Washington team that was looking at $90-plus million in cap space, pending the Wizards retaining their draft pick. They’ll still have max-level room to either add supporting veterans or take on contracts for draft compensation.
Acquiring Young now gives Washington three months to evaluate how he and the team’s young players fit together before building around them this offseason. If dealing for Young was the centerpiece of Washington’s efforts to move toward competitiveness, I’d be concerned. As a starting point in that process, it makes more sense.
