Trae Young, Come on DOWN

[gambitx777]

Solid piece of buy low by the boys up front.

To all the no one's gonna trade for CJ people hahaha suck it lol

So we basically stretched Coreys entire contract in to the final year of traes deal. Which is smart when we have multiple players that are playing better than Corey and are more adorable and younger and do the same thing.

Trae hasn't been a winning player this year and he's been hurt so that doesn't hurt the tank and you just see where you're at.

No getting anything else in the deal dings it a bit

I give it a solid B - with the potential to be a B ++


Sent from my SM-S926U1 using RealGM mobile app

[TheBlackCzar]

Surprised yall don’t like this trade.

This trade is similar to the Ingram one the Raps pulled off last season, and that turned out to be a home run,

I think Trae will elevate Sarr’s game. And as long as he can focus on being the primary playmaker, instead of a chucking machine, yall will be fine.

I think this is the issue...
Most of our fans, aren't really in the entertainment or athletic world, so they don't realize DC if run competently could become a destination city in the future....
They think we are Atlanta or Cleveland....
We are above both these places in status and in visibility....
Our only asterisk is our ownership running our team like we're an impoverished city except in the prices they charge for everything (ticket, parking, concessions etc, then we're setup like we're a bustling city with ample bread flowing around.)
The Commanders are an exact example of how major DC is, and will be going forward...
We've been promised multiple ASG's with our new stadium renovations, by Silver....
I think coach BK will make Trae play harder on D, and be more open to passing the ball, while not totally limiting his offensive creativity....

I think he's definitely going to make Sarr a better player, give Bilal more open looks, and with Tre shooting from logo, along with Trae shooting from Logo, that is alot of gravity that they both will command, really opening up the floor for everybody on our team to play more wide open...

[joshuacf]

Great, great trade.

If Trae sucks, he’s off the books next year and can be bought out midseason.

If Trae is good, he helps next year (when theoretically we should be trying to not suck) at a position we sorely need.

We gave up CJ, who was a) an impending free agent and b) winning games for us this year and hurting the tank;

and Corey Kispert, who was never part of our long term plans.

Not sure how you can be against this trade unless you’re super high on Kispert.

[TheBlackCzar]

Ask yourself: what did they give up to acquire him?

No first-round pick or picks.

No core players for the future. Not Bilal. Not Champagnie. Not Will Riley. Not George. Not Bub.

They gave up two players who don’t matter.

(Although, as people, CJ seems like a great man, and I liked Corey too.)

But neither matter.

That’s it. That’s what they gave up.

That’s ALL they gave up.

Will it work? Who knows.

And those who say they do, don’t. We know what Trae was like on those Hawks teams. We don’t know what he’ll be like on this team, which is built differently from that Atlanta squad that made a deepish run.

But they gave up nothing.

They go into next year with Trae and Tre in the backcourt. And Sarr. And George and Bilal and Champagne and Riley. All of the younguns bigger and stronger and better. And they add — let’s say — Dybantsa or Boozer. And another FRP. And a big man signing.

That’s … intriguing. And maybe much more.

On this we're on the same wavelength....
I agree 100% and wonder in all these hypotheticals we have of getting players, what player would the board have targeted, that we still can't acquire after this trade?

[nate33]

Check out this article about how terrible our offense is....
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6952755/2026/01/07/trae-young-trade-grades-hawks-wizards-nba/

Again while I understand the complaints about his defense, our defense currently is trash, and our offense is trash....
We give up the 2nd most points in the league, and last year gave up historical numbers on defense, and our offense was disgusting then and is still disgusting.....
We have to score points too..

I’m phone posting, so I won’t address all of this. But I just wanted to point out that the Wizards finally resolved most of their defensive rotation problems by mid December. Since December 13, the Wizards have the 20th ranked defense and the 21st ranked offense. That’s a 13 game stretch so the sample size is becoming meaningful.

I think it’s arguable that the Wizards are now competent on defense. There’s a real potential that Trae Young could undermine some of the defensive progress we have made recently.

[Tyrone Messby]

LockedonWizards loves this trade they’re definitely on Ted’s payroll.

[TheBlackCzar]

Check out this article about how terrible our offense is....
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6952755/2026/01/07/trae-young-trade-grades-hawks-wizards-nba/

Again while I understand the complaints about his defense, our defense currently is trash, and our offense is trash....
We give up the 2nd most points in the league, and last year gave up historical numbers on defense, and our offense was disgusting then and is still disgusting.....
We have to score points too..

I’m phone posting, so I won’t address all of this. But I just wanted to point out that the Wizards finally resolved most of their defensive rotation problems by mid December. Since December 13, the Wizards have the 20th ranked defense and the 21st ranked offense. That’s a 13 game stretch so the sample size is becoming meaningful.

I think it’s arguable that the Wizards are now competent on defense. There’s a real potential that Trae Young could undermine some of the defensive progress we have made recently.

Ok we improved in defense but our offense is worse than our defense and our defense just gave up 140 to Minny couple of days ago....
So we weren't going to get it perfect, but our lacking on offense is extreme.... If he doesn't play this season, we're definitely going to lose easily with no CJ, Corey and potentially no Trae...

And once Middleton is gone, how are we going to score 100ppg with nothing but youngings???
But the silver lining in all of this is that I think that we will be able to get more development out of our young guys this year, and next year we are going to shoot for winning 41-46 games.....
That should trend us towards winning 50+ games in 2-3 years from now.....

[jangles86]

Backcourt of Trae & Tre is gonna have some crazy 3-ball range.

I don’t mind that trade to be honest. Tre Young is a liability defensively but on the offensive side he’ll be a huge help for all our core young group.

I doubt we see him in any more than 10 games this year so I’m still supremely confident we keep our pick. And if we don’t…then we have miraculously won 35+ games which will be a huge growth for where this team was at last year.

[DukeLecker]

If nothing else this will be interesting. Trae actually wants to be here which is only positive I can think of.

People want to be in Washington over ATL, gotta mean something.

[TheBlackCzar]

If nothing else this will be interesting. Trae actually wants to be here which is only positive I can think of.

People want to be in Washington over ATL, gotta mean something.

ATL is a wannabe DC.... I know alot of native ATLiens, and transplants from DC.....
They not on our level and they come up here cuz we're higher up the social ladder....
You wanna be something in status you gotta come through DC at some point...........

Outside of LA, NY and Chicago.....

We can play ball with Miami, Houston, Phoenix for marketability............

[Silvie Lysandra]

Read on Twitter

The Beal haul isn’t looking that good anymore. That 2026 pick swap won’t amount to anything. We have sloppy seconds on the 2028 pick swap, so that’s likely nothing too. The only one that might come into play is the 2030 picks swap.

We'll likely at least be solid by 2030, and I really feel this Suns team is a bit of a fluke and they don't have much of a path to getting better. Devin Booker is 29, Mark Williams has never been healthy in his career, and eventually the fairy dust is going to run out for that team, even if it's not this year.

Unfortunately, Atlanta refused to budge on trading a 1st to dump Young.

[FarBeyondDriven]

Backcourt of Trae & Tre is gonna have some crazy 3-ball range.

I don’t mind that trade to be honest. Tre Young is a liability defensively but on the offensive side he’ll be a huge help for all our core young group.

I doubt we see him in any more than 10 games this year so I’m still supremely confident we keep our pick. And if we don’t…then we have miraculously won 35+ games which will be a huge growth for where this team was at last year.

Risacher would beg to differ. And I don't think it's a coincidence that Okongwu is semi breaking out with Trae out most of the season.

[Northwest Roddy]

Somehow we became even thinner and even lighter.

Need some Rick Mahorn / Jeff Ruland energy.

I’m burning incense that we rest Trae the remainder of this season.

[FarBeyondDriven]

Read on Twitter

The Beal haul isn’t looking that good anymore. That 2026 pick swap won’t amount to anything. We have sloppy seconds on the 2028 pick swap, so that’s likely nothing too. The only one that might come into play is the 2030 picks swap.

realgm's reaction to literally every trade is almost always incorrect

[prime1time]

Read on Twitter

The Beal haul isn’t looking that good anymore. That 2026 pick swap won’t amount to anything. We have sloppy seconds on the 2028 pick swap, so that’s likely nothing too. The only one that might come into play is the 2030 picks swap.

Beal haul was good because it moved a player with a no trade clause on a terrible contract. People on this board expect great hauls for over the hill players lol.

[Despy]

Getting rid of Beal was the haul. He still the worst contract in the league

[SUPERBALLMAN]

When I first heard the Trae Young trade rumors, my initial reaction was "Nooooo!!!"...


Now that it's done...

I'm a bit torn on the deal. Trae is not the type of player I like in that he's small, ball dominating, no D.

I was expecting some sort of asset coming back to us with Trae... The Cleveland pick, or Asa Newell, or a future pick. So that's disappointing.

On the other hand, we didn't give up much. We didn't lose Champagnie, the best value in the NBA. None of our stockpile of upside youth (Riley, Bub, AJ Johnson, etc). No draft picks going out.

At the start of this season, McCollum was considered a buyout candidate. We would've dealt Kispert for a ham sandwich. Neither player had much trade value. Both of them (like Trae) are offensive no D players.

Trae Young is a 4X All-Star who has 7 more years until he's the age of McCollum.. He's a legit PG with starting playoff experience who can come in and run this offense and organize this inexperienced roster.

Unless we extend him he's expiring after next season , no long-term risk.

Moving out McCollum & Kispert opens more PT for the likes of Tre Johnson, Will Riley, AJ Johnson, Jamir Watkins.

We retained all of our draft picks... We have 5 picks in this draft and 5 picks in next years draft.

If we draft a Boozer, Dybantsa, or Caleb Wilson... add that player in with Young, Coulibaly, Kyshawn, Sarr in a run and gun up tempo athletic unit, pushing pace, getting stocks that lead to fast breaks. Off the bench with Bub, Tre, Champagnie, Riley... They can be exciting to watch, start winning more, and become an attractive destination other players will be interested in possibly coming here.


In the end, all said and done, I'd say the Wizards come out ahead in the move overall. It brings some national attention to the Wizards. Adding a player like Trae Young, and then a top draft pick, will stir up some hype for what has been a completely irrelevant franchise. It could become a bit of a spring board and set us up to become competitive next season and progress in a positive direction moving forward.

[Darthlukey]

Great get guys, makes you a very interesting team, though it would be crazy to not tank out the season regardless!

[FAH1223]

Read on Twitter

[doclinkin]

Beal and his broke down body and no trade clause became:

Multiple pick swap options with the Suns
First round pick
The 2nd round pick we traded up for Kyshawn.
The 2nd rd pick we traded for CJ McCollum.
Plus Chris Paul.

Chris Paul became Poole.
A Fake 1st round pick from GSW (unless they’re top 10)
And Baldwin.

Baldwin was traded for
AJJ,
Middleton’s contribution to the tank. (And mentorship)
a future Bucks/Blazers pick,
and
getting rid of Kuzma.

Poole became:
CJ. 33yo expiring contract.
Cam Whitmore.
Plus a future 2nd round pick.

CJ became
Trae Young, (27 yo multi time all star rehabbing an injury. With a likely large expiring option year deal).