Atlanta Hawks: Why Trae Young still needs to prove himself

Trae Young is an upcoming superstar in the NBA, but he still has more to prove with the Atlanta Hawks before making that star-studded leap.

At only 21 years old, Atlanta Hawks guard Trae Young has defied expectations in his sophomore season. Young is averaging 29.6 points (fourth in the NBA), 9.3 assists (second in the NBA), 4.3 rebounds, and 1.1 steal on 43.7 percent shooting while going 36.1 percent from 3-point range.

After averaging 19.1 points and 8.1 assists per game on 41.8 percent shooting as the runner-up for the Rookie of the Year award last season, Trae has already taken a major leap toward stardom in his 2019-20 campaign.

In fact, Trae was selected this season as an NBA All-Star starter, which is truly an amazing accomplishment at his age. He could also make a case for this season’s Most Improved Player honor and has a realistic chance at making an All-NBA Team; Not too shabby for a 6’1” guard in his second year.

It looks like the Hawks have found their franchise point guard. As the organization continues to rebuild with a promising young core, Trae Young seems to be their headline for the future.

Trae started all 82 games last season and all 60 games that he played with Atlanta during the 2019-20 NBA season while clearly proving how important his contributions were to the team and to the direction of the franchise moving forward. His usage percentage this season stands at 34.9, which is fourth in the league behind only Giannis Antetokounmpo, Luka Doncic, and James Harden.

There’s no questioning that Trae holds extreme value to the Hawks considering the amount of individual success that he’s had this season.

Although his individual stats have skyrocketed, his team continues to struggle. The Hawks currently have a poor record of 20-47, 14th in the Eastern Conference.

Head coach Lloyd Pierce and the team still have many issues to sort out, especially defensively. The Hawks currently allow 119.7 points per game to opponents, which ranks dead last amongst the entire league.

There have been concerns about the defensive abilities of Trae Young since it’s no secret that he has had his struggles on the defensive end of the floor. In fact, Young ranks an abysmal 468th in defensive rating.

While he could certainly improve on defense, the ultimate responsibility falls on the whole team. I wouldn’t be worried about Trae’s defensive liability as long as the Atlanta Hawks add defensive pieces to surround him with.

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I understand that Trae Young has not been given much help in Atlanta, but it’s difficult to judge his greatness when his team isn’t winning games.

He’s proved that he can be an elite scorer, passer, and playmaker in the regular-season, but he still needs to prove that he can perform just as well in the postseason, where the stakes are higher competing at the highest level.

The playoffs include more physicality, intensity, pressure, and effort that Trae hasn’t experienced yet. Until he plays in the postseason, which I believe he will in the near future, I wouldn’t consider Trae Young as a superstar or a top-five point guard in the league today. Not yet.

Time will tell, but eventually, the chance will come for Young to help Atlanta win in the playoffs. It all starts with the organization developing a winning culture and then earning a playoff spot by succeeding in the regular-season.

That’s what I want to see from Trae Young before judging how great he is compared to the other elite point guards in the league. Competing at the highest level in the playoffs should be his goal at the moment.

It’s unlikely that the Hawks will be invited to the expected ‘bubble site’ in Orlando to resume the 2019-20 season, but next year will have much greater expectations in Atlanta with a legitimate opportunity to make the playoffs behind the contributions and court vision of Trae Young.

Young is an upcoming superstar with a very bright future ahead of himself; Nevertheless, he still has more to prove with the Atlanta Hawks.