Moving on from an All-Star player is never an easy decision for an NBA franchise as was the case for the Atlanta Hawks when they chose to move on from Trae Young when they traded him to the Washington Wizards last month and later moved Kristaps Porzingis and Vit Krejci last week.
“Once we saw the young guys develop and kind of have an identity of their own and Jalen [Johnson] kind of grow into this role that he’s been in, we figured like this is the time to pivot a little bit and continue with the young guys,” Hawks general manager, Onsi Saleh said of the team’s decision you “build” with their young players.
“It was hard for us but we felt like we had to pivot and we got three things that we wanted to do,” Saleh continued as he joined 92-9 The Game’s Carl Dukes and Mike Bell and explained receiving Jock Landale without giving up any of their draft assets in return as well as maintain “flexibility” heading into the summer.
“Regardless of what happens in the summer with different transactions, our biggest roster building point is probably the draft.
Like we’ve got two other 19-year olds probably coming in with the two first-round picks that we have and we’re young right now and guess what? We’re going to be pretty young in the next season as well,” Saleh said. “The goal is to continue adding to this crew, continually grow in competitiveness,” Saleh added.