NBA Trade Rumors: Trae Young Swapped for Fellow Superstar Guard in Blockbuster Trade Proposal

The Atlanta Hawks are soaring without Trae Young in the lineup. 7-2 in their last nine games, up to 4th in the conference, and tied for the third best team defensive rating in the NBA since the defensively-challenged point guard went down to injury.

This all begs the question—without an extension in place, would the Hawks consider trading Trae this season, now that they have “proof of concept” of what they can do without him? “We’re going to see how that looks for another several weeks with Trae out and they start to play some better competition,” said EPSN’s Tim MacMahon on the Hoops Collective podcast. And if that continues to go well, we could very well see a Trae Young trade.

With that in mind, we present one, sexy, eye-popping one-for-one deal that would swap out out Trae for another top-flight dynamic point guard. This proposal comes to us from Eric Pincus of Bleacher Report:

Atlanta Hawks receive:

LaMelo Ball

Charlotte Hornets receive:

Trae Young

Trading Trae’s $46 million salary is not an easy match, but it could pretty much be accomplished in one fell swoop with a deal for Ball, who is as close as it gets to being the scorer and playmaker that Young is, while being three years younger, and, at 6’7”, providing at least some resistance on defense.

Is LaMelo Ball a potential trade match for Trae Young?

For Atlanta, as Pincus notes, “ In this scenario, the Hawks won't completely change their identity, as Young (6'2") and Ball are both scoring point guards.” While Young, a four-time All-Star, has averaged 25.3 points and 9.8 assists per game over his eight-year career, Ball has posted 21 points per game and 7.4 assists per contest over six years.

The real risk for Atlanta is if Ball can stay on the floor enough to make an impact in the long run? His lengthy injury history has allowed him to average just 35 games per season over the previous three years. He’s already been in the shelf for six of the Hornets’ 14 games in the current campaign.

From the Hornets’ side, Young, while currently out with a sprained MCL, played well over 70 games in three of the previous four seasons. And in this hypothetical move to Charlotte, he’d have a sensational and promising young core to help take to the next level, in Brandon Miller, Kon Knueppel and Ryan Kalkbrenner. If Trae were to decide to move on in free agency, as Pincus notes , the Bugs would have a ton of financial flexibility, with that $40+ million being freed up.

Let’s keep a close eye out to see if the Hawks can continue to build on their Trae Young-less success in coming days and weeks, and if they decide to change course away from him.