00:00A blockbuster move that it started to kind of percolate over the 48 hours leading up to the
00:05trade and then finally happens. Trae Young is a wizard? Let's see if that makes sense for anybody.
00:22Trae Young is now a Washington wizard or as Conrad in the Twitch chat has put it,
00:27not a Raptor, which is all I needed. I made it very clear in the last stream that we did,
00:34the last basketball video that I did, I'm not a Trae Young guy. I don't think he makes anyone
00:39around him better. I think so much of the offense has to run through him. He has a liability
00:44defensively. He is not a guy I would be willing to build around. The Washington wizards were at least
00:50saying, well, let's take a shot as they make the move. And I'm not the, again, not a big Trae Young
00:58fan. I can at least squint and see it as they give up CJ McCollum and Kispert in this deal.
01:05The timing of it is a little weird on the Washington side. Brutal start to the year,
01:09but they've turned things around nine and 10 after that brutal start, but it's,
01:14it's still a team in development. And so like with that, I can see why you at least take a shot.
01:21You, if the best version of Trae Young, you don't have on the roster. Like it's, it's cool
01:26that you're getting some development from Koulibaly and Saar and, and George, and you're starting to
01:32get something going there a little bit, but none of those guys can be what Trae Young, the best version
01:39of him can be. The problem is a lot of them are better than the worst version of Trae Young. And I think
01:44they benefit more from having a veteran like McCollum around than a guy like Trae Young on
01:49that team. That being said, again, this league will always go after superstars. And while I like
01:55McCollum and Kispert's fine, it's not that much to give up to, to bring in a player that could reach
02:00those potentials and not have to give up any draft capital, or as we'll talk about here, um,
02:07like a couple of guys who will be rotation players for the Hawks, but nothing too major.
02:13Like this is for the asking price and for the situation Washington's in. I don't think it's
02:19that awful of a gamble, even though I am so far out on, on Trae Young. The big thing is obviously
02:25do not let him get in the way of Koulibaly, Saar, and George. Young is obviously going to be the piece
02:34that everything is kind of around. I don't know if any of those guys are really, well, we need the ball,
02:39uh, 25% usage rate or anything like that. But I, I just, I, I am so far out on this guy that I do
02:46worry about it a little bit. I can just kind of see it from a Washington standpoint, even though
02:50I'm not the biggest fan of having that guy around some important young pieces that I'm trying to
02:55build around in Washington. But like, if it doesn't go well, like it wasn't going well anyway. So
02:59these are the types of gambles that I don't mind lesser than teams taking instead of, well,
03:05let's just try to tank and get the next one in the draft or anything like that. Like if this doesn't
03:08work, they were probably going to get a decent draft pick anyway. So just roll with it, I guess.
03:13I think it's great for the Hawks. Uh, like again, McCollum and Kispert, I, I, not game breakers or
03:18anything, but they fit in with the offense that I think they were trying to run and were able to
03:22successfully run with no Trae Young out on the, uh, out on the floor. This was already a good team
03:29and a pretty good, a pretty deep team. That's why a lot of people liked them coming into the season.
03:34They were two and eight in games that Trae Young played. So to get out of that, to get out of that
03:39big contract and still be able to have guys who can fit in on your rotation, that's a really good
03:45place to be for Atlanta. So I don't think if Atlanta's, um, parading around with the championship
03:52in a few months, we're going to be looking back at, oh, it's because McCollum and Kispert were there
03:57that they were able to get the job done. But this puts them in a very good spot right now. If you look
04:02at their rotation, um, like point guard, they can go Daniels and McCollum, uh, shooting guard.
04:08It's nah, uh, Nikhil Alexander-Walker and Luke Kennard at small forward, Risa Shea, uh, Krejci,
04:14who's been all right as a dead piece for them. And then Kispert. So like from a deep basketball
04:19fantasy standpoint, maybe not the greatest for Krejci, but, um, you can roll pretty good there.
04:24Jalen Johnson at power forward, who's turning into a thing and, uh, Muhammad Gay behind him,
04:29who's been okay so far, like of the pieces that we've talked about, he is probably the more
04:35replaceable of anyone we've mentioned. And then you have Okongwu and Porzingis at center.
04:41I like Okongwu a lot. Porzingis, your mileage may vary when he is healthy. One of the more talented
04:46big men that you have, but that's a really solid, like 10 man rotation that Atlanta can roll with
04:51right now. Uh, yes, with Tingus Pingus out there, Conrad. And apparently they're in on Anthony Davis
04:57like that. When you roll through all of that, you can really see where like AD would be a really
05:04interesting fit on this basketball club. And I think kind of fits a little bit more of the style
05:09that they are going for. And again, they have the new Orleans pick from that horrendous trade
05:14that the Pelicans made at the draft last, last year. They have some control of Milwaukee picks.
05:20Um, they have one that has a really weird protection on it with a bunch of different teams involved,
05:24but they also have Milwaukee pick next year, which would seem beneficial given the direction that
05:28Milwaukee might be going over the next little bit. So you still have a ton of draft capital that
05:35you can build up with this team. And you have a couple of interesting pieces that you can trade
05:42and still not mess with your core. So Atlanta, they're able to get out from what was obviously
05:47a problem and a bad fit. And now it feels like they are in one of the best spots, certainly in
05:54the Eastern conference. Like no one is touching the situation that the Rockets have, or, uh, sorry,
05:59that the Thunder have, or even the Rockets have, or San Antonio or any of them. But when you look out
06:03East and you see the talent that they have, the depth that they have, where they can go, uh, like the
06:08crooked picture back there with, uh, Kawhi Leonard and, uh, that Raptors team where it was just,
06:14hey, we're just not going to play bad players for 48 minutes. And eventually you're going to have a
06:18bench player out there that we can take advantage of. They can do that really effectively. And now
06:24they can still add some star power there. Atlanta's in a very, very good spot at this particular time
06:29and a hundred percent right Conrad, uh, in the Twitch chat, a little bit of addition by subtraction
06:34happening with that Atlanta Hawks team. So they're, they're in a really, really good spot. And a lot of
06:39the optimism they had coming into the season is only going to build coming off of this trade.
06:44And Washington, it's at least a, well, let's see. And I think a shot worth taking for the Wizards,
06:50even if it's not necessarily one that I would have taken. Um, am I completely out to lunch? Are
06:55the Hawks now screwed? Um, does Washington have the last piece to a championship dynasty? Uh, let me
07:00know in the chat how wrong I am or how wrong you think I am. And, uh, we can have a fun discussion
07:05there. Or if you're listening after the fact, uh, you can get at me on social media. I am
07:09at PrimetimeKline on X, Instagram, uh, TikTok, Threads, Blue Sky, all of the places. Uh, well,
07:16not all of them. I'm sure there's a couple I've missed, but a lot of the places. I am
07:18at PrimetimeKline. Uh, we can have a good old fashioned chat over there.
Comments