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

[DanSchwartzgan]

@ShamsCharania
Trae Young has the Washington Wizards as his top preferred trade destination, sources tell ESPN. Atlanta is working to move Young, who has a $49 million player option in offseason that would make him an expiring contract; or opt out, leave and give Hawks significant cap space.

@BrettSiegelNBA
Trae Young and his camp are essentially telling the Hawks to get this done as soon as possible.

Both Young and McCollum have been ruled out with quad injuries for their respective games tonight.

I'm interested to see the extra salary Washington attaches.  Bobby Marks suggested Cam Whitmore and AJ Johnson.  Atlanta can take a 3 for 2, but not a 3 for 1 without other things happening.  As we've established, the only reason to tie this deal to an AD to Atlanta deal is aggregation.  But, from everything I've read, CJ stays in Atlanta if this goes down and KP is the expiring money that would come to Dallas in an AD trade.  So, no aggregation issues (at least with the bigger salaries involved).

FWIW, I've seen two places that have suggested Dallas would give up its 2031 pick and Christie with AD to unlock the 2026 NOP pick with Risacher and KP. Such a construct, if that is all it involved, gets Dallas $1.0mm under the tax line. Personally, I'd rather keep Christie and send Naji. I really like Christie, but I'm not sure I let him stand in the way of getting the NOP pick unprotected.