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

1. Win Rookie of the Year

In the last 15 seasons, seven point guards have won the Rookie of the Year award, including Chris Paul, Kyrie Irving and Damian Lillard. This year could provide one of the toughest years to win the award in recent memory, but playing the point could benefit Young over others.

Luka Doncic has been a crowd favorite since draft night while Deandre Ayton and Marvin Bagley should have ROY-worthy seasons as well. According to Odds Shark, those three players are top-five candidates to win the award. Trae Young isn’t exactly a dark horse either according to those odds. In fact, he’s tied for fifth-best odds to win the award along with Bagley and Wendell Carter Jr.

If Young plans to win the ROY award though he’s going to need a rookie season that compares to the likes of Irving and Paul. Both players posted over 18 points and 6 points per game in the years they won the award and they are currently two of the best in the game. Paul was a good shooter, hitting 43 percent of his field goals, while Irving hit 46.9 of his shots. Irving was also a 39.9 percent shooter from beyond the arc.

Last year’s winner, Ben Simmons, isn’t a 3-point shooter, but as the 76ers point guard, he tallied 8.2 assists and 8.1 rebounds to go with 15.8 points per game. Young won’t be expected to do it all like Simmons was, but may have to approach or even exceed his assists numbers while hitting close to 40 percent of his 3-pointers to overtake Doncic and company.