3 galaxy-brain Trae Young trade ideas to blow your chakras wide open

2. Spurs give Victor Wembanyama his PG in the form of Trae Young

The San Antonio Spurs are 10-40, so now is an admittedly awkward time to trade for Trae Young. He would essentially need to ride out the remainder of a losing season with the Spurs before getting a real chance to contend in 2024-25. Still, it's important to take advantage of opportunities as they come along. If the door is open, the Spurs need to wedge their foot in there and make a real pitch to Atlanta.

Victor Wembanyama is well on his way to NBA superstardom. He's getting better by the week, offering DPOY-level contributions to a team not otherwise built to defend or score at the level necessary to contend. Wembanyama has been excellent on offense, too, putting together historic stat lines on a regular basis despite a minutes restriction. The Spurs are stricken with a great many ailments, but none are more apparent than their lack of quality point guard play.

San Antonio is always notably better with Tre Jones on the floor versus off the floor, but Jones is a career backup in the making. He's not the Spurs' primary ball-handler of the future, nor is Malaki Branham or Jeremy Sochan. Enter Young, the NBA's preeminent "point guard." The league is shifting away from small ball-handlers, but Young's outlier skill set makes him a supremely valuable piece. He's on the short list of best live-dribble passers in the sport, constantly working defenders off balance with dynamic handles before firing on-time, on-target passes with either hand. Young's ability to create advantages as a driver, combined with his playmaking eye, is precisely what Wembanyama needs in a co-star.

The primary knock of Wemby's season to date is scoring inefficiency. He is tasked with a monster workload in San Antonio, which leads to a ton of difficult jumpers. Young can spoon-feed Wemby on lobs — and there's not a single wider catch radius in the NBA. That two-man game would work magic. On the perimeter, Wemby's 3-point touch will start to pay dividends if he's taking clean spot-up jumpers instead of contested step-backs.

Young can help take Wemby to the next level, and vice versa. Wembanyama is the dream defensive backstop for a Young team. On offense, Young's job gets much easier when he can throw it anywhere close to the rim and expect a successful finish. The Hawks went after Clint Capela because he's the ideal rim-runner for Young's prominent pick-and-roll game. Well, Wemby fits the same criteria, only amplified tenfold. The Spurs would very quickly climb up the Western Conference standings next season.