For Trae Young, the writing was on the wall heading into his eighth season in Atlanta last year.
As the face of the franchise, the Atlanta Hawks followed where Young led, reaching the high of an Eastern Conference Final in 2021 and falling to the low of consecutive playoff misses in 2024 and 2025.
Eventually, he was traded to the Washington Wizards midway through last season in a deal that saw Atlanta receive Corey Kispert and CJ McCollum in return.
Speaking on his departure from the Hawks on a podcast with Brooklyn Nets forward Michael Porter Jr. released Tuesday, Young explained that he didn't feel as confident with general manager Onsi Saleh at the controls, and that Saleh may have likewise felt the same way regarding Young.
“I love the (Hawks) owner, Tony (Ressler), and all the ownership group and everybody down there,” Young said. “So I have much love to a lot of people down there in Atlanta, so I never wanted to leave in a bad way. But once we got on that third GM, and we brought in Onsi, it’s like you don’t necessarily feel as comfortable as you did (when) you got there."
For better or worse, Young steered the Hawks' ship, perhaps to the chagrin of those in the front office hoping to take the wheel and build a roster capable of going a step further in the post-season; one that the brass may not have been confident Young could take.
The Hawks acquired Young in 2017 in a draft-day trade that sent Luka Doncic to the Mavericks. Selected fifth overall out of Oklahoma, Young established himself as a premier offensive point guard in Atlanta, leading the league in assists in the 2024-25 season and earning four all-star nods.
However, the team's methodology began to shift when Saleh took the top job late in the 2024-25 season. The Hawks began to lean more heavily on their defence and ran much of their offence through forward Jalen Johnson.
Young failed to established himself as a plus defensive player, never finishing a season with a positive defensive box plus-minus, and with the ball in others' hands more often, the franchise point guard received fewer touches, too.
"I’ve never worked in another job, but I’m sure it’s like this in other jobs where if a new boss is hired, if the new CEO comes in, if a new GM comes in, he’s gonna want to bring in his people," Young explained. "He may make some cuts. He may move some people here and there. He’s gonna figure out who he likes around here, maybe keep him around.
"Obviously, this is my third GM, so it's different. I've experienced the one that drafted me (Travis Schlenk), then we brought in another GM (Landry Fields) who made some things. So when we brought in our third one (Saleh), I figured that, obviously, we all knew around me that it's either we're gonna be around here for the long haul and we win, or it may be time for everybody to part their ways. So for me, we had these conversations with my agent and stuff, but I knew it was time. And for me, I knew I wanted to leave the right way."
Young, born and raised in Norman, Okla., referenced Kevin Durant's choice to go from the Oklahoma City Thunder to the Golden State Warriors in 2016, saying that he didn't want to "get killed for leaving and going a certain way, and I didn't want that type of feeling."
Instead, Young's trade from Atlanta came without much bad blood, as the two sides worked together to send him to Washington, where he was reunited with former GM Schlenk, currently the Wizards VP of player personnel.
Young, despite only playing 498 games in Atlanta, is the franchise's all-time leader in assists with 4,837 and three-pointers with 1,295. Over parts of eight seasons with the Hawks, he averaged 25.2 points, 3.4 rebounds and 9.8 assists per game while guiding the team to the post-season three straight times from 2021 to 2023.
