The Hawks could have a PACERS-LIKE season?! 👀 Trae Young extension eligible & more 🍿 | NBA Today

The Hawks could have a PACERS-LIKE season?! 👀 Trae Young extension eligible & more 🍿 | NBA Today

It’s only August 5th, but we’ve already had three monster deals dropped this month. Starting with Male Bridges on August 1st. Then, of course, Lucas signed a three-year 165 million extension on Saturday. And finally, yesterday, Darren Fox with a full four-year max, $229 million with the Spurs. Amina Smith and for Malikica Andrew. I’m joined by our cast of writers. We got David Zenis Jr., Ramona Shelburn, and Hall of Famer Mark Spears. And guys, thank God we are not writing the checks, okay? because they’re handing out money like it is absolutely nothing. But a lot more of that to come. So, let’s go and take a look. And here are some of the biggest names who are still eligible to sign extensions this summer. Starting in Houston, The Rockets made a big move getting Kevin Durant. However, he is in the final year of his current deal. They can offer up to two years, $118 million for that extension. So, David, how should the Rockets play this? They should just pay the guy. It’s Kevin Durant. still playing. You know, he said that he wants his next team to be his last team. I think he believes that. I think the Rockets factor that when they traded for him. I think this is just going to happen. Yeah. And then you have Male Bridges also not the only nick up for an extension. Carl Anthony Towns also eligible. Now he has three years left on his contract. However, could tag on two years for $145 million. Ramona, is this something that the Knicks should do? I think they will do it at some point. The question is what does it look like? Every single other guy in this core has taken just a little bit less. And that started with Jaylen Brunson. Uh this core went to the Eastern Conference Finals. They were just a little bit away from beating the Pacers. And so I think they want to lock up Carl Towns at some point. The question is will be for how much? And does he give them any kind of discount? Now John Moran also has three years left on his deal in Memphis. Mark, he can sign a two-year extension. Should Memphis get something done now or just wait on this deal? I feel like they’re going to be patient. You know, it’s been a tumultuous couple seasons, injury play, couple seasons for John Morant and um unfortunately, they probably feel like he needs to prove himself a little bit and show that, you know, the talent’s not a problem, but the issues have been. Yeah. Let’s welcome you guys here on ESPN right now. David Dennis Jr., Amita Smith, Ramona Shelurn, and Mark Spears here with you talking about some big names in the NBA. But there’s also one more name with some urgency. We got Trey Young in the final year of his deal with the Hawks. He’s been extension eligible for about a month now, but no deal struck so far. And you have to imagine he’s looking very closely at his fellow point guard Indian Fox on the Max deal. He just signed as well. Trey dropped a revealing post earlier this week. And if you’re following NFL news, you’ve probably seen Micah Parsons is in a contract dispute with the Cowboys. He wrote a book. Yeah, he wrote Exactly. He did write a book. Take a look at this reaction from Trey Young right here. quote, “This is why you pay the man early. When someone will take less early to stay in a place he wanted to be forever, you do it. The price only goes up now. Get what you deserve, bro.” Look, I know social media is almost like just telling. Whenever somebody retweets something or says something or quote tweets, you know, there’s some emotion there. What do the Hawks do with Trey Young? Well, first first thing is if you’re Trey Young, you got to be thankful you don’t have to deal with Jerry Jones. So, that’s a good thing that you got in your family. I mean the the Trey Young Hawks thing is really fascinating to me. I mean this felt more tenuous a few months ago. Uh the Hawks made the offseason moves with Porzingis and uh you know Alexander Walker and it felt like there really is some enthusiasm here because for me with the way that this team looks this will be a top four team in the East and I think there are some Pacers potential for this year for this team in the playoff run. Uh the question if you’re the Hawks is Trey Young the guy can he be your Tyrese Hallebertton with the size with the defensive liabilities? Add in the fact that if you do give him this contract, you got some young guys who are going to be coming up that overlap uh with this contract and then you have think about the what’s the market for Trey Young if he goes out there. Is he going to get max money somewhere else? But on the other hand, you have to pay the tax of being the Hawks. This is the biggest star you’ve had in 35 years. Stars do not come to Atlanta. So then you have one who’s already in your pocket. You may kind of want to pay the guy and you again, like I said, you have a potential to make a real playoff run. I don’t think you want this contract thing hovering over this year as you’re trying to coales around this star. Yeah. You know, Trey uh has done a lot to show that he’s invested in the Hawks. He nil Alexander Walker, Canard, he convinced them to resign. I mean, sign with the Hawks. Uh instead of going with the Jordan thing this summer, he he came to summer league and he got to meet with, you know, Bryson Graham, the new president, some other new front office guys. So, there’s a new front office in Atlanta that’s trying to make decisions. But I’m what I’m hearing now at this point and you could tell by Trey’s tweet and I saw him during the finals. I think he’s disappointed that it hasn’t come. It hasn’t been offered. So don’t be surprised at this point that he he plays this out and sees what happened next summer. But to me Trey has nothing to prove. So and here here’s the overarching question here in the NBA is when they did the new CBA, they made it so that you could offer an extension earlier. And this is somewhat what led to dear Fox ending up being traded out of Sacramento. Some, as one GM told me, sometimes you don’t want to know the answer yet, right? He has he still has two years left on the 5-year extension he signed before trade. So, this is early and and as he sort of suggested with that, whether it’s a sub tweet or just reacting to Micah Parson’s notes comment to Jerry Jones. Um, this is early and when you do something early, sometimes guys are willing to take a little discount, but they’ve had an opportunity to do something early and I think if you’re the Hawks, you might want to see how this team plays it out right now before you commit all that money to Trey Young. You might want to see if these moves work out. You want to see how the young players grow together. But because the extension rules now have been changed to where you get the answer early. Yeah. It’s created a friction here. Yeah. I almost feel like you don’t want that hanging over your head though. Like I feel like that’s a really good point. You don’t want, especially if you’re a star player, you don’t want that issue hanging over the for the whole season. He’s their new Dominique Wilkins. Yeah. There’s not He’s the best one of the best shooters in the league. I don’t think he has anything to prove, but they’re just new sheriffs in town. Yeah. That are trying to like figure out what they want to do with this new young group. Yeah. But you you want to get this thing settled, I think, because I mean, like I said, look at the where the East is. Look at what the Hawks have done. Trey, if I’m Trey Young, I said, “I got you guys to Eastern Conference Finals. We could talk about all the stuff that happened to get us there, but I got you to Eastern Conference Finals, and it was just me. And now we have a team around me that I can finally get you guys maybe that we’re excited about that really has a shot. There’s no Boston. There’s, you know, there’s no Pacers there. Let’s just get this thing figured out. And trust me from what everything I’ve done, trust me to get us over that hump cuz I can do it.” And the Spurs have had one of the busiest off seasonasons in the league. They saw Greg Papovich step down as head coach with Mitch Johnson taking over full-time. Johnson coached the final 77 games last season for San Antonio. The Spurs made two lottery picks this year, taking Dylan Harper with the second pick in the draft and Carter Bryant with pick 14. Both rookies showed some serious promise at summer league in their first action after being picked. in San Antonio continued to get good news this summer as Victor Wbeyama was cleared to return to basketball activities. Webby was shut down for the season in February due to a blood clot in his right shoulder. However, the 21-year-old is set to return this season and then his all-star teammate Darren Fox got his max extension on Monday. Fox ins the four-year deal worth $229 million and keeps him in San Antonio through 2030. So Fox is 27 and firmly entering the prime of his career and the Spurs hope to capitalize on that with this commitment. His new deal kicks in at the start of the 2026 season and at that time he’ll be the second highest average value in the league for any guard only behind Steph Curry. So Ramona, there’s been a lot of talk on social media between yesterday this news coming out and right now whether or not Darren Fox, not that he deserves the deal, but they should pay that much for him. What say you? Listen, it’s it’s a percentage of the cap. So, I know that all of us look at the numbers and we go, “Wow, that’s a lot of money.” But, it’s a percentage of the cap, just like it’s always been a percentage of the cap. And I think when they when they made the trade for Darren Fox, they always knew they were going to give him this deal. This is not a surprise. This is not there was no debate with within the Spurs of like, do we do this? Do we try to No, you make the trade because you’re going to lock this guy up long term. Yeah, you happen to hit in the lottery and you got the number two pick and now you have Dylan Harper and this years down the line, maybe there is a backlog of players, but that’s your problem for years down the line. And it’s a good problem to have because Fox is such a good player. If it becomes where he becomes too expensive, you got to start paying some of the young kids and now you have to make a decision between some of those guys in the back court. Fine. He’s still a great player. You would have plenty of trade value. Yeah, I I agree. I think that the guy the part of this is the contracts not really overlap with when you’re resigning some of those young guys too. So you can see what you have. Part of this is we just don’t know what this Wimby ceiling is. Like we don’t know what a window for the Spurs. It could be now, right? And you can have a guy who can be a second best player on a deep playoff run with Wimi because he’s just that good. And now you have a guy you can win now with in De’Aran Fox and you have future talent. And I mean I just don’t see really a downside to this. people see the sticker shock of the number and based on these other things. But when you’re talking about the uniqueness of this team and what you’re building around a star that can elevate your ceiling right now, I think you got to do it. I think this situation brings the best out of Fox. He’s coming to a place where he didn’t play that many games in San Antonio. So, I don’t think the Spurs faithful has had a chance to fall in love with him yet, right? So now all of a sudden he gets his contract, but they got one of the best point guards in the league, perhaps the quickest point guard in the league who now is going to be motivated by this money and he’s going to be motivated by Castle Harper being behind him. Yeah. So I think for Fox, you know, this is the biggest year of his career. He got his money. There’s no franchise drama. He has to get back to being an all-star player. There’s nothing else he needs to worry about. His family is back in Texas. Yeah. You got to be allstar this time. And and I think that he could do that with that that heat that that talented heat behind him, that young heat. And I think with all this discourse, people are forgetting that Darren Fox is a baller. We forgetting that a lot of interest in him Sacramento was open for [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

On NBA Today, David Dennis Jr., Ramona Shelburne and Marc J. Spears discuss Trae Young being eligible for a 4-year/$229M contract extension with the Atlanta Hawks. Then, they catch up with the San Antonio Spurs’ offseason moves including giving De’Aaron Fox a 4-year/$229M extension.

0:00 Players eligible for extension
2:19 Trae Young extension talks
6:44 De’Aaron Fox’s extension w/ the Spurs

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