NBA Trade Rumors: Hawks plan to keep Al Horford, key guards

Despite trade suggestions and rumors, it has been reported the Atlanta Hawks plan to keep Al Horford at the NBA trade deadline.

For those who wanted to see blockbuster deals on NBA trade deadline day, you may need to look at other teams besides the Hawks. After Al Horford and Jeff Teague have continued to appear in rumors as high-profile targets for multiple teams around the league, it looks like they want to keep them.

Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports has reported that despite all the interest, the Hawks are letting others know their intention to keep key players like Horford.

While Woj didn’t mention Teague, it’s relatively same to assume that the phrase “key guards” includes their starting point guard. Kent Bazemore is another name who has appeared in rumors, and given his importance, he may well be out of trade talks now, too. Whether or not the Hawks want to move onto current backup Dennis Schroder as their new starter for 2016-17 is still unclear. But in the meantime, it looks like all the teams who got their hopes up over landing Teague will be disappointed.

On one hand, it’s surprising that the Hawks aren’t going to capitalize on Teague. He’s drawn interest from teams like the Utah Jazz, Orlando Magic, New York Knicks and others, which would surely result in at least a couple of eye-catching offers for Atlanta. On the other hand, Teague has improved his performance lately and the Hawks aren’t in a position where they can blow up their roster and hope to suddenly improve.

Yes, they aren’t going to win a title, but that’s no need to blow up a team who made the Eastern Conference Finals at the end of a 60-win season just a year ago.

As for Horford, he’ll command an even higher price that Teague. A two-way, floor spacing center has so much value in today’s NBA, although, if Woj is right (as he usually is), teams like the Boston Celtics may need to look elsewhere for their new franchise center.