Atlanta Hawks: 5 goals for Trae Young’s rookie season

2. Quality over quantity

In 2017-18, seven different NCAA players took 600 or more shots. Trae Young was one of them, but despite leading the country in points per game, he was actually second in field goals attempted. Andre Spight of Northern Colorado out-shot Young 661 to 618.

Of young’s 618 shots attempted, 328 of them were from beyond the arc. He beat out Spight in that category, but three other players still attempted more 3-point shots than Young. We know that Young will be taking shots in bunches with the Hawks, but volume isn’t always great.

We also know that Young has an insane range from beyond the arc, hence the Stephen Curry comparisons. But if he’s going to truly lead the Hawks and be apart of their march back to the playoffs, he needs to step up his efficiency.

At Oklahoma, Trae made 42.2 percent of all his field goals and 36.0 percent of his 3-point attempts. Of the seven players with 600 or more field goal attempts, Young ranked fifth among them in field goal and 3-point field goal percentages. Young ranks slightly better if we widen our player pool to those that attempted at least 500 field goals last year, but 35th out of 46 players isn’t exactly promising either.

Gone are the days were a point guard is just a facilitator outside of the Chris Paul’s and Rajon Rando’s, but even they can put up 30 points on a given night. If Young wants to join the ranks of the elite scoring point guards, he has to be more efficient with his shot selection as a rookie.