Interest in a Trae Young trade has picked up after Adam Silver and the NBA overhauled draft lottery rules at the end of May, a change that could reshape how teams view the four-time All-Star before next season starts. Jake Fischer reported Tuesday that the market for Young has spiked since the anti-tanking reform was put in place.
That matters now because the reform will be active as early as the 2025-26 NBA season, when the lottery expands from 14 teams to 16 and the odds are flattened. The league also built in a relegation zone that punishes the bottom three teams, a direct attempt to make losing less attractive and give more weight to games that might otherwise be treated as late-season drift.
Fischer said there is now “some renewed interest” in Young compared with February, when there was not much demand around him. That is a marked shift for a player who, even with his offensive production, has long carried two traits that complicate any deal: he dominates the ball and his defense has made some teams decide the fit problem was bigger than the upside. In February, that combination kept the market quiet; now, the market sounds more alive.
The change also fits the way the league is trying to steer team behavior. Tanking has been treated as a major problem, and the new rules are meant to make finishing near the bottom less rewarding. If that changes how front offices think about draft position, it can also change how they think about a guard like Young, whose value has always depended on whether a team believes it can build the right pieces around him.
There is still a gap in the picture. Fischer did not name which teams are showing the renewed interest, and that leaves the next phase of the Trae Young trade market unresolved. For now, the clearest takeaway is that the league's rule change has already altered the conversation around Young, even before the 2025-26 NBA season begins.
