“This City Doesn’t Want Any Young Talent”: Lou Williams Believes The Atlanta Hawks Will Trade Their 2024 No. 1 Overall Pick

The Atlanta Hawks overcame incredible odds to land the first overall pick in the 2024-25 NBA draft. After a lackluster season led to the team missing out on the playoffs for the first time in the last four years, Atlanta now has the opportunity to bolster their roster with the top lottery pick. However, former Hawks guard Lou Williams has a different take on what the team should do going forward. 

Former Sixth Man of the Year winner, Lou Williams recently gave his take on what the Atlanta Hawks should do with their first overall pick based on the team’s current roster.

“In Atlanta, the vibe is, they’re in no mood for a rebuild. They don’t want any young talent. They wanna be in the mix with the Indianas and the Knicks and all these teams that have turned the corner who have All-Star caliber guys and superstar caliber guys like Trae Young, like a Dejounte Murray; who both have been in respective All-Star games.”

“This city does not want any young talent right now. They wanna trade that pick and they want to get some guys that can come in and help them win right now.”

 

By landing the first overall pick in the upcoming draft, the Atlanta Hawks have the opportunity to trade the asset in exchange for another All-Star to add to their roster that would help Trae Young and Dejounte Murray on the floor.

The Hawks made it to the playoffs for the past three seasons but were knocked out of the first round in the last two years. Despite this, the team does have a good core that comprises players like Clint Capela and Jalen Johnson who are great support pieces to Trae Young and Dejounte Murray.

However, it seems as if the Hawks are missing that one piece that could get them over the hump, which leads us to what Lou Williams had to say. ‘Sweet Lou’ strongly believes that the Hawks should part ways with that first overall pick to get someone who can instantly help them win instead of giving a rookie a few years to develop.

While this may seem like sound advice at first, this year’s draft contains Alex Sarr and Donovan Clingan amongst many other high-ceiling players, one has to wonder if the draft is the right direction to go in. Further, what Trae Young wants to do with his future also needs to be factored into this discussion.

Does Trae Young want to stay in Atlanta?

In the past, Trae Young has expressed his desire to stay in Atlanta and win with the Hawks. The Oklahoma State product mentioned how he did not want to waste much time and wanted to continue to play at a high level.

“Everybody knows, like obviously, I want to be in Atlanta. When I was drafted, that’s where I wanted to spend my whole career. But at the same time, I wanna win. There’s times when teams wanna take their time, and be slow with winning or process.”

“It’s just like, ‘I’m not there anymore.’ Like I wanna-I wanna win, and I’ve always been that way. I don’t feel like I have very much time to waste, and so I just wanna continue to play at a high level and I feel like I can do that and play at a high level and win. So, that’s all, I was really reiterating is I wanna win.”

Talking about how he wants to win now instead of waiting over the years, Young emphasized that he wanted to finish his career with the team that drafted him during one of the episodes of his podcast, From The Point.

While Young’s desire to stay with the Hawks may still be going strong, there have been heavy rumors linking Trae to the San Antonio Spurs. Many even believe that Young would be a perfect fit with Spurs rookie sensation, Victor Wembanyama.

So, the Hawks do have a chance to trade away Young for draft picks and players from San Antonio instead of parting ways with their first overall pick, going against Lou Williams’ prediction. But it is highly unlikely that fans would get to see the Hawks pull the trigger on parting ways with their All-Star point guard before draft night.