Trae Young will be a Washington Wizard.

This one, I have to ponder.

It’s odd that the Wizards have gone in to acquire the 27-year-old Young, a four-time All-Star, from the Atlanta Hawks, for CJ McCollum and Corey Kispert. Not just because Young doesn’t fit any of the physical and skill sets that Washington’s front office has said, over and over, it wants on this roster: positional size, defensive pedigree, the ability/potential to switch and guard multiple positions. But also because of his fit inside a locker room full of young players who, for the first time, for real, are seeing their work paying off on the floor. A 10-26 team that needed to win five of eight to reach that awful won-loss record has a long way to go.

But, just as Alex Sarr is starting to become a dominant defensive force and Tre Johnson is seeing his maniacal practice work show up with logo 3s and Kyshawn George is starting to find his playmaking voice and Bilal Coulibaly is taking tentative steps toward becoming a two-way player, the Wizards are bringing in the big talent and personality of Ice Trae. He will become the orchestrator, the big voice, the way Russell Westbrook did during his single season here. It will be impossible for his young teammates not to defer to someone who closed down the show, and the Knicks, at Madison Square Garden in the 2021 playoffs — with a scowl and request for silence.

And, it’s odd because if the Wizards do, somehow, get a top-four pick from the 2026 lottery, that player could well be someone who needs/wants the ball in his hands to cook, such as Kansas freshman Darryn Peterson or BYU forward A.J. Dybantsa or Houston’s Kingston Flemings, which the Wizards should absolutely do if they were to get one of those players and not think twice about it. Does it make sense, then, to bring in Young before you know what the draft could bring?

Why now? And why him?

(First, though: The NBA Twitterverse is … something. There was no way Washington was going to give up a draft pick to take on the remaining year and a half of Young’s contract — the rest of the $45.9 million he gets the rest of this season and the $48.9 million player option Young will almost certainly exercise for the 2026-27 season. By taking Young’s massive salary off the Hawks’ hands, the Wizards have freed up Atlanta to be a major player this summer, whether in free agency or via trades. If anything, Washington should have held out for a first to help Atlanta facilitate the deal.)

OK. The Wizards’ braintrust is determined to get its young core into more meaningful games next season. (The rest of this season? Call it draft maintenance. Let’s just say it won’t be a surprise if Young goes on the Brandon Ingram plan and Washington takes the won-loss hits the rest of the way.)

They want to see what the best offensive versions of Sarr, George and Johnson can be, and see if they, along with the 2026 pick, can take tentative steps toward the Play-In Tournament next season. Young can help them find out.

At the very least, Michael Winger and Will Dawkins have, in less than a year, turned Jordan Poole into McCollum into Young. The skill upgrade at the point is undeniable — and Young is seven years younger than the 34-year-old McCollum. He’s a certifiable bucket who does more damage inside with his unending series of floaters and runners and drives and pull-ups than outside the 3-point arc. He’s never shot better than 38 percent from deep in a season. And that ability to score makes him one of the most heliocentric players in the league. His gravity pulls opposing defenses toward him every possession. That could do wonders for the young Wizards.

Young led the league in assists last season with 11.6 and is at 8.9 per game this season. He passes, and quite well. Johnson should get multiple wide-open looks behind the arc every game. Coulibaly, who struggles to score when left to his own devices, might become a one-dribble slasher/finisher off Young dimes or find himself alone on corner 3s. George, who’s improved his handle significantly, could become even more dangerous and valuable as a secondary ballhandler on the weak side.

And a Young-Sarr pick-and-roll could be devastating.

No one in the Association throws a better lob than Trae. Sarr has grown on offense this season and is doing his level best to become stronger in the paint. But going through opposing bigs to get to the cup is never going to be his specialty. He performs best in space, using his length and quickness to beat defenders to the rim. Young will give him all kinds of chances to attack the front of the rim.

But the 6-foot-2, 164-pound Young is a defensive liability. (To be fair, so were Poole and McCollum.) Even though they’ve been a little better of late, the Wizards are still really bad on defense. How will they protect Young?

“You protect him with Sarr!” an NBA head coach said with some heat the other day, reminding me that Sarr, in his second season, is becoming a shot-blocking demon who’d be OK inhaling drivers that Young funnels into the paint.

Look at this sequence in the fourth quarter of Washington’s win Tuesday over Orlando after the Magic’s reserves had cut a 26-point deficit late in the third quarter to four and the Wizards were on the verge of a horrendous collapse. Those were Sarr’s fourth and fifth blocks of the night. He now leads the NBA in blocked shots per game, at 2.4. That followed Sarr’s block of Giannis Antetokounmpo’s putback in the final seconds in Milwaukee last week, which led to McCollum’s game-winning jumper in Washington’s 114-113 win.

Sarr does this a lot now. That he also did it with games on the line hearkens back to most of the game’s great shot blockers, who knew it wasn’t how many shots you block or alter, but it’s when you do it that matters.

“I’m definitely trying to block the most shots I can, but definitely, late in the game, when you need a stop, I feel like that’s the one that matters, for sure,” Sarr said Tuesday.

Opponents are shooting just 51.5 percent against Sarr so far this season on defended shots inside of 6 feet, per NBA.com. Going into Wednesday’s games, among bigs with more than 700 minutes played this season, only Detroit’s Isaiah Stewart (43.8 percent allowed), Minnesota’s Rudy Gobert (48.2 percent), Oklahoma City’s Chet Holmgren and Houston’s Kevin Durant (50 percent apiece) and Brooklyn’s Nic Claxton (51 percent) are allowing less productivity at or near the rim.

But.

Young is going to Washington for a reason. Reasons.

The Hawks gave up on their franchise player who got them to the 2021 Eastern Conference finals. They didn’t get two firsts for him as the Kings did for sending De’Aaron Fox to the Spurs last year. Or four firsts, like the Grizzlies got from Orlando for Desmond Bane. Or three firsts, like the Raptors got for Pascal Siakam. (We’re not even gonna talk about the Knicks’ five firsts for Mikal Bridges.) They sent Young on his way for McCollum, who’s not likely to be in their long-term plans, and Kispert, who is a good, solid role player. Even Corey would say he’s not a star.

The Hawks played better without Young this season. There was not much support for him in the Hawks’ new front office. (The guy who did the draft-night deal that brought Young to Atlanta in 2018 for the rights to Luka Dončić, Travis Schlenk — the Hawks’ former general manager — is now in Washington’s front office and was a strong advocate for making the deal.) You haven’t heard anyone in Atlanta’s orbit come out in the last week, or all season really, and say anything in Young’s defense or how he still fits in. Including players. Young noticed. It was time for him to move on. He wanted to come to Washington for multiple reasons, including a fresh start, but the fact that the Wiz can potentially give him that extension surely is near the front of his list.

Young will get a chance to rehab both his knee and reputation in D.C. He will also provide talent insurance in case the Wizards are again unlucky in the lottery. They’d have someone to organize around next season while passing on an uninspiring group of free agents this coming summer.

And, not that I’m a cynic or anything, but Young could also goose the numbers at Capital One Arena.

Washington’s home attendance through 18 home games this season, according to ESPN.com, averages 15,746, a slight drop-off from last season’s average attendance of 16,187 per game. The $800 million renovation of COA that Ted Leonsis struck with D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and the D.C. City Council last year is in the third phase of a six-phase renovation plan that will run through the summer of 2027 before its completion.

And the “Vault Suites,” courtside seating for the highest rollers coming to Wizards and Capitals games, are now open. They aren’t cheap. And while the Wizards’ young guys are plucky, folks don’t usually pay five or six figures a year to watch plucky. They pay to watch Ovi. Young isn’t Ovechkin, of course, but he’s compelling and fun to watch, and I can’t imagine Leonsis will mind having someone around that might fill some seats and get Washington on an actual national TV game or two next season.

I don’t know. Westbrook got young guys like Rui Hachimura to play harder while he was here and got the Wizards to dig deeper when they were down and fight back. In the end, he led Washington to an improbable playoff berth with an incredible last month of the season.

On the other hand, the Wizards traded him the following summer to the Lakers. Maybe Young will be here a little longer and leave a little deeper footprint. It’s a gamble, and Young will determine whether the Wizards go all-in in the summer of ’27 or fold their hand quickly.