After seven and a half seasons with the Hawks, Trae Young was traded for the first time in his career. Fortunately for Trae, his landing spot was a place he wanted to be: the Washington Wizards. Now, he has an opportunity to help build something new in the nation’s capital.
“There’s a lot of different directions I could have gone as far as my goals and what I wanted my legacy to be at the end of the day,” said Young in his introductory press conference. “For me, just being able to have an impact on my teammates and the people around me, I feel like I did a good job of that as a young player in Atlanta. Being a vet and doing it with these young guys here, I feel like I have more experience and more things I could give these young guys.”
Young, 27, may not play at all this season as the Wizards aim for one last lottery finish, but there is excitement about what’s to come. For Trae, Washington, D.C., is a place where he can enhance his legacy while expanding his brand in an untapped market.
“I’m just super excited. For me, D.C. is overlooked as far as a big market. In the NBA, I feel like this is a big market. I’m coming to an opportunity to be myself, around people who have known me for a long time, who know the type of person that I am, and the type of winner I want to be. It’s a day-by-day process and I know what it takes. It’s not gonna be easy, but I know this is a place I’m excited about and I was excited about when I heard it could be a possibility.”
The Wizards have been mostly irrelevant in the Eastern Conference, and stars rarely choose to play there. Still, Washington, D.C., ranks as one of the top NBA market cities with a population of roughly 6.3 million people. Besides being the political center of the United States, it’s a cultural melting pot with countless business opportunities.
For someone like Young, the allure is obvious. Besides enjoying the luxuries of life in a big city, he gets to play for a group of passionate fans on a team that’s so often overlooked. He’ll also get paid a lot of money in the process, with a massive contract extension imminent.
On the court, Trae will be joining a young roster eager to take that next step. While the team may look very different when Young takes the court again, they have a solid foundation in place already with guys like Alex Sarr, Bilal Coulibaly, and Khris Middleton.
With career averages of 25.2 points, 3.5 rebounds, 9.8 assists, 1.0 steals, and 0.1 blocks per game on 41.5% shooting (30.5% from three), we know that Trae can deliver at an All-Star level. But after years of mediocrity in Atlanta, he has to prove that his best days on the court are still to come.
