Trade & FA 2025-26: Free Agency Starts 5pm CST/6pm EST

[DanSchwartzgan]

I took a quick listen to the Locked On Hawks podcast about a potential AD trade. He was relatively okay with including Risacher in the deal, but pointed out that the Hawks have never paid the luxury tax. Looking at their cap sheet, if they trade for AD and Trae opts in they would already be well into the tax next year. They may need to find a taker for Trae before committing to any long term salary.

Yeah, it is really tough to do a KP based deal AND keep them under the tax with a legal roster.  It is easy to make the math work but if the deal ends up being an unbalanced trade and you have to account for ATL getting back to 14 players.  You can do it with AD, DP and Exum for KP, Risacher and Kennard, but you haven't accounted for Nembhard and you didn't accomplish my goal of getting either Newell or Gueye.  Personally, I'd tell Atlanta to put on their big-boy wallet and pretend to be a real NBA franchise.