Trae Young is no longer the franchise centerpiece of the Atlanta Hawks.

Atlanta reportedly traded the guard to the Washington Wizards on Wednesday, per ESPN’s Shams Charania, who added, “The Wizards are not expected to have immediate extension talks with Young, and both sides will evaluate his health once he arrives in Washington, sources said.”

The Athletic’s David Aldridge, Sam Amick and Josh Robbins added of Young’s future:

“While rival teams expect Young to pick up his player option, league sources say Young has not made a decision on that front at this point. He is open to the prospect of discussing an extension but is assessing the free agency landscape for this summer, as well.”

McCollum reacted to the trade in a statement to NBA insider Chris Haynes:

According to Spotrac, Young’s contract features a $46 million cap hit for the 2025-26 campaign.

The Wizards now have $247.4 million in total cap allocations, while the Hawks are at $187.5 million in total cap allocations.

Here is how each team’s depth chart could look after the move:

PG: Trae Young, Bub Carrington

SG: Tre Johnson, AJ Johnson, Malaki Branham

SF: Bilal Coulibaly, Justin Champagnie

PF: Khris Middleton, Jamir Watkins, Will Reilly

C: Alex Sarr, Marvin Bagley III

PG: CJ McCollum, Nickeil Alexander-Walker

SG: Dyson Daniels, Luke Kennard

SF: Zaccharie Risacher, Corey Kispert

PF: Jalen Johnson, Asa Newell

C: Onyeka Okongwu, Kristaps Porziņģis, Malik Williams

The Hawks didn’t move Young ahead of the 2025 trade deadline, although there was some speculation about him possibly being traded. Even the decision to hold onto him at the time brought his future with the franchise under the spotlight given his contract.

The 2025-26 campaign was set to be the final one on his deal ahead of his $49 million player option for the 2026-27 season. The long-term uncertainty on that deal meant the Hawks were facing a decision regarding whether to offer him an extension, trade him or let him play out the contract and hope he didn’t grow discontent with his situation.

As for Young, he could have demanded a trade before the 2025-26 season or even played it out and then declined the option before signing elsewhere if he didn’t want to remain in Atlanta.

Charania reported Monday that he was working with the team to find a trade:

Charania’s report came amid plenty of speculation that didn’t go anywhere ahead of the 2026 trade deadline, although there were multiple reports indicating there wasn’t going to be a robust market for him that would create a bidding war between contenders.

Ultimately, the Hawks still decided to trade him.

It is the end of an era for the guard who has been with Atlanta his entire career following a draft-day trade in 2018 that landed Luka Dončić with the Dallas Mavericks. His resume with the Eastern Conference team includes four All-Star selections and a spot on the 2021-22 All-NBA Third Team.

His best moment likely came during the 2021 playoffs when he led the team on a surprise run to the Eastern Conference Finals before it lost to the eventual-champion Milwaukee Bucks in six games.

It seemed like Atlanta’s future was bright and just getting started since it was his age-22 season, but it has struggled to replicate that type of postseason success since. It lost in the first round in 2022 and 2023 before falling in the play-in tournament in 2024 and again in 2025.

At his best, Young is an offensive machine who can take over a game at a moment’s notice with his ability to hit from well beyond the arc, facilitate when defenders collapse on him and attack the lane off the bounce.

He averaged 24.2 points, 11.6 assists, 3.1 rebounds and 1.2 steals a night during the 2024-25 campaign, although efficiency was something of a concern as he shot 41.1 percent from the field and 34 percent from deep with 4.7 turnovers per game.

He has followed with averages of 19.3 points, 8.9 assists and 1.0 steals in 10 games in 2025-26 while shooting 41.5 percent from the field and 30.5 percent from deep.

Washington being the team to trade for him is surely surprising for some seeing how it isn’t a realistic contender in the Eastern Conference.

Yet Young also isn’t a long-term commitment since he could decline his player option and hit free agency ahead of next season. That means the Wizards have a headline name to play out the stretch run and should have no shortage of flexibility assuming he is no longer on the books next season.

Perhaps then Young will look at various contenders in free agency.