Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Good morning and welcome to the NBA Daily for January 8th, 2026, presented by Amazon Prime. I'm Dave DeFore here with Espera Henney. Coming up, Trey Young traded to the Wizards. We got Josh Robbins on to talk about it. Bunch of crazy games last night. We're going to go through them. And Brian Geisinger is here to talk about the Hornets and their development this season.
Good morning and welcome to the show, guys. We've got some breaking news at the top. Josh Robbins is here to talk about it. Trey Young traded to the Atlanta Hawks for C.J. McCollum and Corey Kispert. It's kind of the deal we were talking about earlier today. Josh, lay out the specifics and how we got here. OK, very clean trade going to Atlanta. C.J.
Chapter 2: What are the details of the Trae Young trade to the Wizards?
McCollum, Corey Kispert going to Washington. Trey Young. That's the trade. Yeah, easy peasy. That's the trade. How did they get here? Well, Trae Young did not agree to a long-term extension. Let's put it like this. The Hawks and Trae Young did not agree to a long-term extension during the offseason or in the past few months. The Washington Wizards lack a long-term solution at point guard.
And while it's unclear... Whether this will work, this appears to be a very low-risk, relatively low-cost move from the Wizards' standpoint. And from Atlanta's standpoint, a team that is built to contend now in the East... they get two very good wing scorers who should be able to help. And CJ's a combo guard, so he can handle the basketball quite deftly.
And so I think in the short term, this should work for both teams. And I will be interested to see how much Trey Young plays the remainder of the season for Washington. Seems to me TBD. And so that's something for all of us here on this podcast and the fans listening at home to monitor. Yeah. Were you surprised at all that there were no picks going, I mean, in either direction?
I never expected any... I never expected... Any picks that the Wizards sent to Atlanta to exceed in value anything Atlanta sent to the Wizards. Now, 24 hours ago, 12 hours ago, I would have thought Atlanta would have sent draft capital Washington's way in order to accept the salary for next year. It's a $49 million player option. Yeah. But I was proven wrong.
But there was so much speculation in so many corners of the internet, social media, TV, that the Wizards would be sending the Hawks picks to That part, I never thought that was going to happen, unless maybe the Wizards sending a second-round pick and then getting a first-round pick. Right. On that one, I'm not surprised. A lot of other things in basketball surprised me. Not this one, though.
Josh, do you see this as a trial run for Trae Young, or is there, I guess, momentum or acceptance to the fact that this could be a long-term thing extension-wise? Well, as... Our colleagues and I wrote, our colleagues being David Aldridge, Sam Amick, and me. Right now, it looks like it's going to be a trial run.
If we assume that Trae Young plays again this season, they'll have the rest of the season for both sides to look to evaluate, particularly the Wizards to evaluate. And if he doesn't play this season... It can go into next year, evaluate the fit with the young players on the Wizards and Trey Young. See how that goes.
It's going to be a very interesting dynamic because Trey Young is a ball dominant point guard. And after the Wizards have moved off of Jordan Poole, it's been a motion offense where everyone's passing the ball at a super fast pace. And that's what the Wizards are going to have to evaluate. And let's just say they don't come to any sort of long-term agreement.
And we assume that Trae Young invokes his $49 million player option for next year. Well, then the Wizards will have a decision to make at the 2027 trade deadline or free agency in 2027.
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Chapter 3: How does the Trae Young trade impact the Wizards' long-term strategy?
Yeah. And with the trade. It is essentially a trial run. Right. And with the trade, they also get his bird rights. So if they wind up working out an extension down the line or whatever, they have that tool in their pocket. I mean, the fit to me does make sense if you believe in a higher ceiling for the Wizards defense next season.
the tentability of having Trey Young at the point of attack on your defensive end, I think could set this team back, like when you're talking about development.
But on the offensive end, there is a very strong argument for having someone that talented that can organize your offense, that can run pick and roll with Alex Saar, that you can't help but see the hopeful, optimistic view where maybe he can be a rising tide to elevate some of these guys. I see it. Said perfectly. Said perfectly.
He has so much gravity with the ball in his hands, also from distance beyond the arc, that that should open up driving lanes for... Explosive players such as Bilal Koulibaly, it should open up open shots for Trey Johnson, Keyshawn George, Bub Carrington, all of whom are approximately 40% and up three-point shooters. In Johnson's case, that's potential. He'll likely get there.
So they should feast on the gravity that he creates. Same with Alex Saar on the perimeter. And as you said, in the pick and roll, if Trey Young can make Clint Capella one of the league's top lob threats, then he should help elevate Alex Saar to be one of the league's top lob threats. Yeah, I agree with that completely. I mean, I guess if the growth that we've seen out of Saar this year,
One way to see if there's more to that is to add a guy like Trey Young. I agree with you completely. Josh Robbins, guys, go and read him over at The Athletic. I mean, he's on The Wizards. He's on The Magic. He's on everything. He's got us covered here with the breaking news. Stick around. We're going to talk about some of the games from last night.
You know, as something I didn't think of there while we were talking to Josh about the Trey Young trade, the Hawks and the Wizards, They were playing. Yeah. And the Wizards were in Philly. And it made me think about hot fuzz. OK, but imagine C.J. McCollum as like Nicholas Angel, who was too good for his job.
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Chapter 4: What are the implications of the trade for the Atlanta Hawks?
So they sent him out to the country. OK, C.J. McCollum overqualified like he's been too good. Hey, man, winning too many games. We send you to the country down to Atlanta. I was thinking about Steve Coogan. Well, then you're packed already. Nick Nurse, after the game with the Sixers, you sent me this, at least the quote itself. He said, oh, it was, they asked him about the Trae Young trade.
He said, was it for Cody Kispert, Corey Kispert and CJ McCollum? And they were like, how'd you know? He's like, oh, they said they were sick, and they didn't look very sick. They did not look sick. Very funny. Yeah, they did not look sick at all. It's kind of funny because I think there's a lot of conversation about Trey and what happens with the Hawks moving forward.
They got some flexibility to maybe go out and make some other trades. But looking at it from the Wizards' perspective, there's a pretty crazy – trade tree happening here all the way back to when they first moved Bradley Beal. So they basically went from Bradley Beal to Chris Paul, to Jordan Poole, to CJ McCollum, and to now Trey Young.
And through that process, they got four years of pick swaps. They got six second round picks and they saved $16 million over the next two years. I think that is unreal organization from the Wizards, who, by the way, over that span, compiled a bunch of draft picks, drafted this really interesting young core, who I think both of us are at the very least intrigued by. Very excited about.
So it's just good organizational building from the Wizards. Bradley Beal might have been the worst contract in the league at the time that they traded. He had a no trade clause. So tip of the cap, good front office work. We don't have to do that very often around here. By the way, the front office of the Wizards, Front office, former front office member for the Oklahoma City.
Yeah, everybody's been everywhere, though. So it's not that interesting. You know what? This show is packed. We're going to we do a deep dive after the break on the Hornets a little bit. Yeah. Brian Geisinger, who hosts the Buzzbeat podcast.
it was a lot of fun and we figured hey they they just beat the the thunder when are they ever going to be riding that high well we'll get to them uh at the end of this this segment here uh but there were some awesome games not just the trey young trade and i want to start with these zombie nuggets although a little less zombie because you know everybody was playing who was healthy um jamal murray man he's just been unreal this season he leads
the Nuggets to a big win on the road against the Boston Celtics who we've talked about kind of you know very high on but yeah Jamal Murray kind of a crazy game for him when you think about the fact that we see him playing off of Jokic and Jokic being the primary playmaker we we maybe forget a little bit that Jamal Murray is more of a traditional point guard than we give him credit for you know he plays with with Jokic but when Jokic isn't out there he's he has a high assist about right
17 assists in the game, 22 points, eight rebounds for Jamal Murray. And look, we've been saying that this is an all-star season for him. I think that if you just wanted to take one game and make that case, you say, hey, look at this game where they go into Boston with no Jokic and look at what he did. Yeah, I love the way he's using the attention that defenses are sending him, right?
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