Pascal Siakam, the Toronto Raptors’ forward, has been in the news for his potential trade for a while now. And it is also known that the Atlanta Hawks have been pursuing Pascal Siakam for a time now.
After all, this 29-year-old athlete has been phenomenal the last season, with an average of 24.2 points and 5.8 assists, which were also his career’s best. He’s quite flexible and could be a very likely replacement for John Collins. He’s a two-time All-NBA selection and All-Star as well as a former NBA champion. There’s no wonder the Hawks want him on their side.
Pascal Siakam’s resistance to the Atlanta Hawks trade
But it seems Siakam doesn’t approve of this pursuit. On July 7, Marc Stein in his podcast titled ‘#thisleague UNCUT’ talked about Siakam’s response to the Hawks.
“As for Siakam… the resistance to a trade to Atlanta has really been on his side,” he said. “The most-consistent rumblings there have been the Hawks had been very interested in a trade for Siakam, and that Siakam has been resistant to it…Siakam really wouldn’t be interested in a contract extension if the [Raptors] were to move him.”
In the same podcast, Stein mentions that Siakam’s message has been sent to the Atlanta Hawks.
This isn’t the first time that we’ve heard about difficulties arising for the Atlanta Hawks in the Pascal Siakam trade.
On July 5, an insider from Yahoo Sports NBA, Jake Fischer, wrote, “The rising noise about Toronto forward Pascal Siakam has seemed to quiet. The Hawks and Raptors have discussed various concepts to send Siakam to Atlanta in recent weeks, sources said. However, those conversations have not generated any forward progress of late.”
Siakam is into his last year of the four-year contract of $136.9 million contract. If he chooses to sign an extension, his current team will pay him a first-year salary of up to $53 million and a 140% raise from his 2023-34 salary.
“He would have been eligible for a maximum starting salary of nearly $44.9 million and a five-year, $260.3 million deal with the Hawks or a four-year, $193.0 million deal with any other team,” said an article on Forbes. “He’s settling for more than $70 million less than what he could have earned.”
There are obvious reasons why Siakam wouldn’t want trade to Atlanta, but what is in the Siakam trade is still disputed and unknown.
