Wizards’ surprising plans for Trae Young come with a Knicks twist

Wizards season ticket holders may have to wait until the 2026-2027 season to see their new prized addition.

Guard Trae Young may not play for Washington this season after his stunning trade from the Hawks, according to The Athletic.

The 27-year-old Young played just 10 games for Atlanta this season due to injury before being shipped off to lowly Washington for a pair of players.

A league executive speculated that Washington will be very conservative on Young’s rehabilitation to ensure it doesn’t lose its top-eight protected 2026 first-round pick to the Knicks.

Should the Wizards finish this season with a record in the bottom eight, they will owe the Knicks a pair of second-round picks.

“This is what life is like among us [draft] lottery system, with partially protected draft picks,” an NBA executive told ESPN. “You have one team [in the Hawks] that is not his choice to trade a player because they lost too much when he was playing.

‘And you still have a team [in the Wizards] who desperately needs to keep his pick, who might find a reason not to play the same player because they might win too much if he plays.

Young has been sidelined with a quad injury, which is usually a non-seasonal ailment.

Washington announced Friday that he will miss his first potential game with his new team against the Pelicans due to a right quad contusion and right MCL sprain.

However, the Wizards have little motivation to rush Young back.

This trade was made with the future in mind, not the 2026 campaign.

The Wizards (10-26) have the NBA’s fourth-worst record and are just three games above the Eastern Conference’s bottom dwellers in the Pacers.

They are four games worse than the Mavericks, whose 14-24 mark represents the ninth-worst mark in the league.

The sensible play for Washington is to take that top-eight pick, hope it gets some lottery luck and then build a better roster for the 2027 season — even if the Knicks might disagree.

In addition to Young being sidelined, the Wizards dismissed CJ McCollum and his team-high 18.8 points per game and Corey Kispert’s 9.2 points per game.

Losing 28 points per game and replacing that production with bench warmers from one of the league’s worst lineups is not a strategy that screams winning basketball.