Dejounte is gone, is Trey next?
Either way, the Atlanta Hawks must be feeling a lot better today because they finally ripped the bandaid off. At the very least, either Dejounte Murray or Trae Young had to go. Today, the answer was Murray. The team sent Murray to New Orleans in exchange for Dyson Daniels, Larry Nance Jr., EJ Liddell and two first-round picks, a league source 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, a trade that put the team on the brink of inexorably mediocre yet unable to lose.
It’s a shocking and noteworthy accomplishment for a front office that hasn’t made a meaningful trade all year beyond promoting Trent Forrest on a two-way deal.
Here’s a side-by-side comparison: The original Murray trade gave San Antonio three first-round picks (two of which were unprotected) and a draft swap. On Friday, the Hawks received two first-round picks and a former draft lottery pick in Daniels. Veteran big man Nance is included in the deal as a salary match.
Going deeper
Pelicans-Hawks trade assessment: Will New Orleans become a championship contender with Dejounte Murray?
But keep in mind that one of the No. 1 picks originally sent to San Antonio, the lottery-protected No. 1 pick from Charlotte, has not yet been transferred and is increasingly likely to be converted into two second-round picks in 2026 and 2027 (if, as most expect, the Hornets don’t make the playoffs this year).
The Hawks won’t have any picks of their own in 2025 and 2027 and will have a swap obligation with the Spurs in 2026, but Victor Wembanyama’s San Antonio team is expected to be stronger by then. Not good, Bob.We will explain this part later.
Meanwhile, Atlanta just acquired the Lakers’ unprotected pick in the 2025 draft and will most likely select in the early teens. The Hawks also acquired an unprotected pick in 2027, but that will be the lower pick between New Orleans and Milwaukee.
But the other gem is Daniels, a promising defensive specialist who joins a team that finished 27th in the league’s defensive rankings last season due to a woeful lack of ability to control the ball.
Daniels has two years left on his rookie contract, which pays him $6.1 million this year and $7.7 million next year. He struggled to fit in in New Orleans because of his poor shooting and the number of other questionable marksmen, but he could be a key player in Atlanta, a potential counterpart to Young, the famed bullfighter.
The timing of this trade also allows the Hawks to reuse their $23 million John Collins trade exception for another year, which will become the “Murray exception” and be worth $18.2 million until June 28th or 29th of next year, meaning Atlanta fans won’t have to say the name “John Collins” when proposing a trade. (I’ll add that the Collins exception will have $6 million remaining until July 8th if the Hawks are active with their trade machine.)
Atlanta also dropped $6.3 million below the line after briefly winning the draft lottery, and will have an “avoided luxury tax” flag hanging on the ceiling of State Farm Arena. The Hawks have 14 players under contract, but the addition of Nance would make Bruno Fernando’s nonguaranteed $2.7 million contract a funnel. We’ll know more about him soon, as his guarantee expires Saturday.
Luxury tax avoidance is a joke, but the extra cash space opens up other possibilities for Atlanta. Signing Vit Krejci to a roster contract seems like a given, but the Hawks might also consider a small-dollar deal for free-agent forward Saddiq Bey. Bey tore his ACL and will likely miss most or all of this season, but if his contract lasts through 2024-25, the Hawks would hold his Bird rights through next summer.
More notably, Atlanta can now take full advantage of its non-taxpayer midlevel exception to pursue other talent, especially in a backcourt that may need another shot creator to fill the minutes outside of Young.
While no further moves have been made, the Hawks have quickly rejuvenated their roster: Daniels, No. 1 overall pick Zachary Lisacher, 2023 first-round pick Kobe Bufkin and 2022 first-round pick Jalen Johnson quietly emerged as some of the league’s most improved players last season and now appear to be core pieces.
Of course, I say this as if the Hawks trade is done. Is it really? Rumors of Clint Capela and De’Andre Hunter have circulated for years, but the general consensus among league sources is that the Hawks won’t get anything meaningful in return from them.
And finally, there’s the big question: You can’t talk about Atlanta’s predicament without talking about its core option: trading Young to San Antonio and getting that pick back, which would allow Atlanta to do a serious tanking reset around Lisacher, Johnson and Daniels.
San Antonio is the only plausible trade partner for such a move, given that the Spurs are now three straight draft winners of the Hawks. Conveniently, San Antonio is also in desperate need of an elite point guard, and their combined non-core salaries (Devonte Graham, Zach Collins, Tre Jones) would easily match Young’s $43 million salary. The fact that the Spurs pushed back Graham’s guarantee date to July 8th at the very least raises the question.
It would be much harder to trade Young to another team and have him tank. In theory, Atlanta could do a “Brooklyn Special” by trading the pick they just acquired in the Murray trade to San Antonio and get their own pick back, but the Spurs would probably demand a premium and an additional first pick. So unless the offer for Young is at the same level as Mikal Bridges (four or five first picks), trading Young to another team is probably not a good move for Atlanta.
So for now, it’s definitely Trae Young’s team again.
This time, at least, everything is fitting together dramatically. Let’s give a little credit to Murray here. He played (and performed well) through various injuries and contributed to the team, even though his name was in trade rumors late last season and he knew he would likely be gone in the summer. But there was zero chemistry between Murray and Young, and asking Murray to wear the number 2 took away one of their old strengths.
Existential questions remain as to whether this roster can truly achieve anything more than “first-round cannon fodder.” Atlanta’s record over the past four seasons is a mediocre 161-157 with no real offensive potential. They got the No. 1 pick in the draft in a year when most people valued No. 1 picks as serviceable second weapons, not superstars. Off to the play-ins, here we go!
Still, Friday was the best day since Landry Fields’ reorganized front office was formed. By releasing Murray, the Hawks regained flexibility to move in different directions, with or without Young. (Don’t discount the fact that they now avoid the Stepien Rule, which requires them to trade their own player first in 2026 or 2028, for example.)
In doing so, the team could have a roster that was younger, cheaper, more consistent and better suited to its best players. It’s unclear how long that last part will remain true.
(Top photo of Trae Young and Dejounte Murray: Kevin Gairaj/USA Today)
