Insider floats Hawks as trade destination for Kevin Durant

It’s the offseason, which means the Hawks are finally interesting.

Following another disappointing season, it seems the club is finally at a crossroads to make a significant change to a roster that has only had one major shake-up when they traded for Dejounte Murray.

The overwhelming expectation is that the Hawks will trade one of Murray or Trae Young. There’s a world where they trade both or neither, but most likely, one of the All-Stars will be playing in different threads next year.

With an unproven front office and ownership that is one-foot-in, one-foot-out, I’m not sure how Hawks fans have confidence in the organization successfully navigating what should be an eventful offseason.

What we can count on this time of year is an incredible amount of player movement around the league. The offseason has become the season for a lot of teams, including the Hawks.

One avenue that everyone would love was brought up by Zach Lowe of ESPN on his podcast ‘the Lowe Post podcast’, where he floated the idea of Atlanta being a trade destination for Kevin Durant.

“… the one that kind of makes sense, in theory, is Atlanta. For one of the point guards, De’Andre Hunter, Saddiq Bey… throw all the wings in. But they just don’t have picks. I think they have the Sacramento pick and one other future pick they can trade. They don’t have enough picks. But that’s like a fun little fake one,” Lowe said.

Lowe clarified that nobody has suggested a trade is eminent or anything, but the Hawks are, in fact, an exciting hypothetical if a possible window opens.

I’m sure the Suns would want Trae Young in return, and if I’m Atlanta, I think real damn hard about the package Pheonix is asking for. If the Hawks can somehow work a deal to send Dejounte Murray and more assets instead of Young, that would be ideal.

However, the Hawks don’t have a first-round pick in 2025 and 2027 as well as a pick swap in 2026. Jalen Johnson would certainly interest the Suns, but first, they have to be willing to part ways with Durant, which is likely a worst case scenario for them.

With that being said, these are two organizations in similar positions. Both do not own their own draft picks, so a fire sale isn’t really an option, making a swap of star players is a logical solution.

How realistic is it? Probably not very, but this is the kind of shake-up the franchise needs.