We Officially Have Our Second NBA Trade Of The Year With Hopefully More To Come

Let's go baby!! What, this Woj bomb doesn't do it for you? Come on don't be so greedy, if anything maybe this is the trade that gets the ball rolling as we quickly approach the trade deadline. This may seem like a nothing trade between two lottery bound teams but I'm not going to be picky. I'll take anything I can get at this point and I have to say I'm a little confused as to what the hell the Wolves are doing here. Let's dive in.

Now it was pretty clear that when the Wolves gave Teague that $19M player option for this season there was no way he was turning down that sort of cheese. I wouldn't say Teague has been bad in MIN, but he's certainly not been what he was in ATL. He'll give yuo 13/7 on good shooting splits but be a defensive liability on most nights. At this point he's an expiring contract though and with rumors that MIN is interested in upgrading their point guard position, it made sense that they would eventually trade Teague. A bit surprising they also let the hometown kid in Tyus Jones leave but whatever. They basically traded one expiring deal for another since Allen Crabbe's $18.5M expires after this season as well. To me this smells more like they felt like Teague was a locker room problem and had to remove it immediately. I mean I get it, he had sort of fallen out of the rotation as of late and sometimes it's better to just cut your losses.

My question is, what is the plan at point guard for the entire second half of the season? As of now MIN only has one point guard on the roster in Shabazz Napier. That feels stupid. I guess they value the need for outside shooting more than having any sort of point guard depth? They are 8th in the NBA in 3PM but just 29th in 3P% so maybe they feel like they can get back into things with a healthy KAT and some additional shooting. I'm not so sure. My hope for their sake is that they cleared this with KAT beforehand because if not and he's not thrilled with this....well that's only going to add fuel to the fire that he should demand to be traded despite his new extension.

For the Hawks, this actually isn't that bad of a trade. They didn't exactly have a legit option to back up Trae Young, and that problem is now solved. I'm sure Teague will enjoy being in his old stomping grounds and since the Hawks have made it clear they aren't really going to play Evan Turner, they desperately needed another guard. Obviously I don't think this gets them into the playoffs or anything like that, but if does help limit the potential risk of injury for Trae Young since they can actually give him some rest. You take Young out of that lineup and it might be the worst offense we've ever seen, so at least now they have someone competent they can plug in and fill some of that scoring role. I'm not kidding either when I say that. The Hawks Ortg drops from 108 to 90.7 when Trae Young comes off the floor. That's beyond pathetic. Teague knows how to play in P&R so he should fit with Collins, and again since it was an expiring deal for an expiring deal there's no risk on their end. 

There's no denying this season has a bit of a disaster for the Hawks, but don't focus on that. Instead remember all the good times you had with Jeff Teague the first time around and what this will do to help Young. That's all that matters at this point