With Dejounte Murray trade, Hawks finally move forward and reset around Trae Young – for now

Dejounte is gone. Is Trae next?

Regardless, the Atlanta Hawks must be feeling a lot better today because they finally ripped the Band-Aid off. Dejounte Murray or Trae Young were supposed to go… at least. Today, the answer was Murray, whom the team sent to New Orleans for Dyson Daniels, Larry Nance Jr., EJ Liddell and two first-round picks, league sources confirmed Friday.

Somehow, it seems the Hawks were able to recoup about 97 cents on the dollar from the reckless trade that brought Murray to Atlanta in the first place, a trade that plunged them into a slump of relentless but unable-to-tank mediocrity.

For a front office that went an entire calendar year without making a single transaction more significant than promoting Trent Forrest to a two-way deal, that’s a shocking and remarkable accomplishment.

Let’s compare side by side. The initial Murray trade sent three first-round picks, two of them unprotected, and one pick swap to San Antonio; The Hawks received two first-round picks and a former lottery pick in Daniels on Friday. Veteran big man Nance is in the deal as equal pay.

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Recall, however, that one of those firsts initially sent to San Antonio – a lottery protected first from Charlotte – has yet to be conveyed and appears increasingly likely to turn into two second-round picks in 2026 and 2027 (This will happen if the Hornets miss the playoffs this year, as most expect).

The Hawks won’t have their own picks in 2025 and 2027 and will owe a trade to the Spurs in 2026, which is when the Victor Wembanyama-led San Antonio team appears to be strong. Not great, Bob. We’ll come back to this part in a minute.

On the other hand, Atlanta just picked up an unprotected pick from the Lakers in the 2025 draft that has a very high chance of landing in the teens. The Hawks also received an unprotected pick in 2027, although it was less than New Orleans or Milwaukee.

The other gem, however, is Daniels, a budding defensive specialist who joins a team whose tragic inability to contain the ball resulted in the league’s 27th-ranked defense a season ago.

Daniels has two years remaining on a rookie contract that will pay him $6.1 million this year and $7.7 million next year. He struggled shooting and didn’t really fit in in New Orleans as they had a lot of other suspect shooters, but in Atlanta he becomes a vital piece that could start to counterbalance the famous matador Young.

The timing of this trade also allows the Hawks to recycle John Collins’ $23 million exception for another year; it will now be the “Murray exception”, worth $18.2 million until June 28 or 29. The Atlanta faithful will never again need to say the name “John Collins” every time they propose a trade. (I should note: $6 million will remain on the Collins exception until July 8 if the Hawks prove frisky in the trade machine.)

Atlanta can also hang another “avoided luxury tax” banner from the rafters of State Farm Arena, dropping $6.3 million below the line after their lottery triumph briefly put them over it. The Hawks have 14 players under contract, but the addition of Nance would appear to make Bruno Fernando’s $2.7 million non-guaranteed deal fungible; the deadline for its warranty is Saturday, so we’ll find out soon.

I joke about luxury tax avoidance, but the extra financial wiggle room opens up other possibilities for Atlanta. Signing Vit Krejčí to a roster deal appears to be a foregone conclusion, but the Hawks could also consider a small contract for free agent forward Saddiq Bey. He has a torn ACL and will likely miss most or all of this season, but the Hawks would retain their rights to Bird until next summer if he remains under contract in 2024-25.

Most notably, Atlanta can now use its non-taxpayer mid-level exception to pursue other talent. In particular, the backcourt could use another shot creator for non-Young minutes.

Even without further movement, the Hawks have quickly transformed into a younger team. Daniels, No. 1 overall pick Zaccharie Risacher, 2023 first-rounder Kobe Bufkin and 2022 first-rounder Jalen Johnson — among the league’s most improved players last season — now appear to be key pieces.

Of course, I say all of this as if the Hawks are done trading. Are they? The Clint Capela and De’Andre Hunter rumors have been around for ages, but the general consensus from league sources is that the Hawks can’t get any meaningful return for them.

And finally, there’s the elephant in the room. No discussion of Atlanta’s fate is complete without discussing the nuclear option: trading Young to San Antonio and getting those picks back, which would allow Atlanta to move forward with a sincere reset of the tanking around Risacher, Johnson and Daniels.

San Antonio is the only plausible trade partner for such a move, given that the Spurs currently own three straight draft picks from the Hawks. Ideally, San Antonio is also in desperate need of an elite point guard and could easily bundle non-core salaries (Devonte’ Graham, Zach Collins and Tre Jones) to match Young’s $43 million salary. The fact that the Spurs just pushed Graham’s guarantee date to July 8 is at least sobering.

Pivoting to a tank by trading Young to any other team is much harder. Theoretically, Atlanta could also do “The Brooklyn Special” by trading the picks they just received in the Murray trade to San Antonio to get their own picks back, but the Spurs would likely demand a premium beyond that in the extra firsts. So unless the deals for Young are in Mikal Bridges territory — think top four or five — dealing Young elsewhere probably isn’t a good move for Atlanta.

So once again it’s undeniably Trae Young’s team…for now.

This time, at least, the pieces fit together much better. Let’s pause to quickly acknowledge Murray, who played (and played well) through various injuries in the second half of last season, even though his name was in trade rumors and he knew he was likely gone this summer. But he and Young had no chemistry together, and asking Murray to keep both of them took away one of his old strengths.

Existential questions remain as to whether this team can actually achieve anything beyond “first-round cannon fodder”—Atlanta’s record over the last four seasons is a harmless 161-157. Fittingly, they got the No. 1 pick in a year where most rated the No. 1 pick as a useful secondary weapon but not a superstar. Play-in time!

Nonetheless, Friday was the best day for the reconstituted front office under Landry Fields since its formation. By moving on from Murray, the Hawks have regained the flexibility to move in multiple directions with or without Young. (Don’t ignore the fact that they’ve evaded the Stepien rule now, for example, by trading their own prime in 2026 or 2028.)

In doing so, they ended up with a roster that was younger, cheaper, more consistent and better suited to their best player. We just don’t know how long this last point will still be valid.

(Top photo of Trae Young and Dejounte Murray: Kevin Jairaj / USA Today)