The NBA Trade Market Has Crashed
On teams' behavior over recent years leading to last week's Trae Young trade, why Ja Morant's market won't fare better, and what other max-level players could go for.
Last week, we had our first NBA trade of the season when the Hawks traded Trae Young to the Wizards for CJ McCollum and Corey Kispert. The immediate reaction for most NBA fans is “that’s it?”
It’s genuinely a fair question. That’s all the Hawks get for a four-time All-Star who’s just 27 years old? A good reserve shooter and largely cap savings for an elite passer who averages 25 points per game in his career? If you told an NBA fan that Young would go for this package three years ago, they wouldn’t believe you.
In fact, if there was a time when the Hawks could’ve gotten optimal value for Young in a trade, it was three years ago. 2022-2023 was the peak of the seller’s market that saw many All-Stars get traded for a team’s entire draft over the next seven years. Kevin Durant, Donovan Mitchell, and Rudy Gobert were just some of the players to get moved in such trades.
During that span, the Hawks traded two future unprotected first-round picks and a pick swap for Dejounte Murray. The fit between Young and Murray never took off, and it was a disastrous move that sparked the beginning of the end of the Young era in Atlanta. They were fortunately able to get more value for Murray than they initially got for him when they traded him to the Pelicans in a deal that featured two first-round picks and Dyson Daniels.
That trade was just two years ago. Surely, Young should’ve gone for at least that, right?
Where the Hawks and Trae Young Go From Here
The Atlanta Hawks came into the season with expectations to make the playoffs following their offseason. The additions of Kristaps Porzingis and Nickeil-Alexander Walker, along with the return of Jalen Johnson, would round out a young and talented roster in a weak Eastern Conference. Instead, the results have been mixed at best, but complicated by injuries.
We are now in a buyer’s market that has been ongoing since last year. The signs were there when players like Jimmy Butler and Brandon Ingram went for as little as they did (one first-round pick). Even Luka Doncic and De’Aaron Fox were traded for well below their market value, but there were special circumstances leading to that.
Since 2019, just over a third of the league made trades involving two or more unprotected future first-round picks. Because of these deals, currently, 11 teams are prohibited from trading their own 2026 first-round pick due to Stepien rule complications.
Also, there’s been an influx of extensions and big-money contracts. Teams have been risk-averse, often extending or re-signing role players to lucrative contracts. We’ve also seen players who aren’t consistently named in All-NBA teams receive max contracts with all the bells and whistles attached.
All this aggressive trading and spending has resulted in a market where every team wants to buy but has nothing to buy with. And all those players who signed lucrative contracts will have limited suitors on the market. Both of these variables factored into what we saw on Wednesday night when we saw one of the best point guards of the decade essentially get salary dumped.
