The Atlanta Hawks officially own the No. 1 pick in the 2024 NBA Draft. Their front office has some big decisions to make this offseason.
Even before the Hawks recently won the draft lottery, it was considered “most likely” that Atlanta would trade one of their two guards: Trae Young or Dejounte Murray.
Now, they can fully embrace a youth movement and potentially build around whoever they feel is the top prospect in this class. Should they decide to split up their backcourt, one team often rumored as an ideal destination for Young is the Spurs.
According to league insider Jake Fischer, however, San Antonio does not have that same interest in the three-time All-Star (via Yahoo):
“The Spurs have so far approached building around Wembanyama as an intriguing experiment, where they will weigh all different kinds of variables around their Rookie of the Year. However, according to multiple league figures with knowledge of the situation, any Spurs plans of maneuvering to bring Young to San Antonio have been vastly overstated. The Spurs, sources said, have expressed little interest in obtaining Young to date.”
San Antonio owns multiple draft picks from Atlanta after trading Murray to the franchise in 2022.
While the Hawks may have interest in trying to obtain those picks back so they could potentially bottom out after moving Young, the Spurs are likely not interested.
In fact, the market for Young is not considered very vast at the moment. Here is more from Fischer:
“An unofficial poll of executives in Chicago also suggests Pelicans wing Brandon Ingram will have a wider range of teams interested in acquiring the one-time All-Star, as compared to Young, should New Orleans truly explore a roster shake-up of that magnitude.”
Ingram, who has averaged 23.1 points per game since joining the Pelicans in 2019, is coming off a rough postseason.
He scored just 14.3 points per game while shooting only 25.0 percent on his 3-pointers. But at 6-foot-8 and with a 7-foot-3 wingspan, he offers more size and versatility than Young.
San Antonio is a team that historically values defensive impact and Young has shortcomings on that end of the floor. So as their front office begins building a perfect roster for Wembanyama, it isn’t shocking that they may prefer someone like Ingram.
But it does lead us to wonder where Young may end up if he is moved, or if Atlanta eventually decides to offload Murray instead.
