Atlanta Hawks: 5 reasons to be excited for 2019-20 NBA season
1. Trae Young
How good is Trae Young? Depending on who you ask, he is either the NBA’s next superstar point guard or a promising player with glaring question marks. Is he too small to withstand the rigors of the pro game? Will he shoot efficiently at the next level? Can he get past NBA-level defenders? Did the Hawks make the right decision trading Luka Doncic for him?
Last season, Young responded to those concerns with a somewhat resounding yes. Sure, his 3-point shooting started shakily — he made only 31.2 percent during the first half of the year — but his college reputation kept defenses honest to some extent, which gave him free rein to dice up opponents with passes like this:
Post-All-Star break, Young kicked it up a notch, improving his per game and efficiency stats and giving Doncic a serious run for Rookie of the Year. He torched teams with his shooting, navigated the pick-and-roll like a Formula One driver and gift wrapped easy points for his teammates. Looking at clips like the one below, it’s easy to see why Hawks fans are so excited about him.
This Hawks offense is built to get the most out of their young point guard. They ran a lot of pick-and-rolls to take advantage of Young’s court vision — the eighth-most in the league, Young ranked sixth in P&R possessions.
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For the Hawks to become contenders, he has to improve on his 0.81 PPP on such plays, not to mention his ghost-like defense. But whether his growth in Year Two is incremental or drastic, he’ll still produce his fair share of dazzling highlights.