Atlanta Hawks: 2018-19 player grades for Trae Young

Negatives

For as promising as Young looked at times this year, there are still some glaring warning signs. For starters, most advanced metrics aren’t as bullish on his game as the per game totals would suggest; his 17.0 Player Efficiency Rating paints the picture of a slightly above-average player and stats like win shares per 40 minutes (.062) and box plus/minus (-1.1) view him as something less than that.

The main culprit was his lack of overall efficiency. Contrary to what some of those clips in the previous slide showed you, Young was not good in the pick-and-roll; his 0.81 points per possession on such plays put him in just the 46th percentile.

This was largely due to his proclivity to chuck long 3-pointers. That would be fine if Young made a respectable percentage of them, but his rates on those long-range shots were uneven, at best.

Young shot only 32.4 percent from behind the arc this year, with his low rates in pull-ups being the main contributing factor to his struggles (31.1 percent on 4.3 attempts per game). These shortcomings are what also made him one of the worst transition scorers in the association, as his 0.99 points per possession placed in the 25th percentile. His paltry 51.1 field goal rate from the restricted area also played a role there.

And that’s before you delve into his awful defense. Calling Young a turnstile on the less glamorous end of the floor is probably too generous, as even turnstiles give a little bit of resistance before you pass through them.

Among qualified point guards, Young ranked dead last in Defensive Real Plus-Minus (-4.79). That’s not all; Young also ranks close to the bottom in opponent points per possession in the pick-and-roll (1.00) and opponents shot a disconcerting 48.2 percent when being defended by him.

Head coach Lloyd Pierce tried to mitigate this by putting Young on an opponent’s worst offensive player, but considering that the Atlanta defense improved by 8.9 points per 100 possessions when he sat, it shows that teams still found a way to exploit Young’s lack of size and athleticism.