Washington Wizards\u00a0star\u00a0Trae Young\u00a0plans to decline his $48.97 million player option for the 2026-27 season and will become a free agent Monday, sources told Andscape’s Marc Spears on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Washington remains the front-runner for the four-time All-Star, but multiple teams are expected to have interest, sources said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Young entered last season determined to prove he was worth a four-year, $229 million max extension and was the leader the\u00a0Atlanta Hawks\u00a0needed to contend in the East. But he suffered a sprained right MCL in the fifth game of the season in late October and did not return until mid-December.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Young’s absence, the Hawks saw enough in rising star\u00a0Jalen Johnson\u00a0and the players around him to deal Young to the Wizards in early January for\u00a0CJ McCollum\u00a0and\u00a0Corey Kispert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Young played only five games for the rebuilding Wizards and averaged 17.9 points and 8.0 assists in a combined 15 games for the Hawks and Wizards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Wizards traded for Young, who has averaged 9.8 assists per game over his eight-year career, to be the quarterback for their young core. They also acquired big man\u00a0Anthony Davis\u00a0last season and believe Young and Davis can be an All-Star duo that can lift the franchise to compete for a playoff spot next season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The team also says it believes the two veterans can help a young core of\u00a0Alex Sarr,\u00a0Kyshawn George,\u00a0Tre Johnson,\u00a0Will Riley,\u00a0Bub Carrington\u00a0and the No. 1 pick in next week’s draft take the next step after the franchise lost 64 or more games in each of the past three seasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Washington Wizards\u00a0star\u00a0Trae Young\u00a0plans to decline his $48.97 million player option for the 2026-27 season and will become a free agent Monday, sources told Andscape’s Marc Spears on Wednesday. Washington remains the front-runner for the four-time All-Star, but multiple teams are expected to have interest, sources said. Young entered last season determined to prove he was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12903],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-417713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-12903"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417713"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":417714,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417713\/revisions\/417714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}