Having shrugged off the dualism with Luka Doncic born after the 2018 draft, today Trae Young is an absolute superstar in the NBA. But alone is not enough in Atlanta.
The last siren of the game sounds, Atlanta Hawks v Portland Trail Blazers ends. Trae Young practically scored in the last 12 seconds two incredible triple to give back a faint hope to his team in a match virtually closed a minute earlier by the hosts, who at the end of the match close ahead 136-131. Looking up at the scoreboard, the points are 56. Shortly after, he will learn that he has added to that sensational scoring performance the daughter of 17 baskets out of 26 shots from the field, of which 7 beyond the arc, also 14 assists and 4 rebounds, contributing in total to 86 of Atlanta’s 131 points, 48 of which in the first half alone out of the 53 team.
It would be a personal best first of all, his career high of points, but in reality The NBA record book reveals that no player before him had been able to score so much and accompany the performance with all these assists, and that only 5 in all history can boast a 55-point game and 10 career assists. It is just the umpteenth evening in which, looking at that scoreboard, the score brings the number 11 down to earth after a sumptuous match in which, while supporting his team alone, he was unable to lead them to victory.
A December to be framed
Trae Young’s golden moment, after the first weeks of adapting to a new ball and new NBA rules on physical contact fouls, started a month and a half ago, on November 20th. On that occasion, a just normal version of him was needed to beat the resistance of the Charlotte Hornets for 115-105, but it is from that challenge onwards that the Atlanta phenomenon has ringed a series of games of at least 25 points still open and with 16 matches in a row.
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An escalation that not only brought the season average back up (currently the NBA second-best scorer behind Kevin Durant, at 28.4 points per game), but that allowed him to update his career highs also to the percentage entry from the field (46%), from three (38.1%) and to the free throws (90.2%) up to 56 tonight, the 19th game of at least 40 points in just 4 years of the NBA.
The distance dualism with Doncic
The 2018 draft, the one that opened the doors of the NBA to Trae, is also or better known above all as the draft of Luka Doncic, with the Slovenian Golden Boy who added a step in the rookie season and the following one night after night. to immediately consecrate himself in the elite of the league. At number 1, DeAndre Ayton was chosen, at number 2 the Sacramento Kings – opening one sliding door not indifferent in their history – they veered on Marvin Bagley III, from Duke University, and after precisely Doncic and the fourth choice spent by the Grizzlies for the long Jaren Jackson Jr, it was Atlanta’s turn to take home what would become the face of the franchise . In fact, the Georgia team actually touched pick number 3 e Luka Doncic was the player who was chosen, except to be swapped immediately with the Dallas Mavericks who, therefore, called the 5 Trae Young.
In that exchange that for the following months seemed decidedly reckless for everyone given the impressive progression of the boy from Ljubljana, Young was seen in at least the next two seasons as the weak side of the trade and with him Atlanta, who could find himself an absolute superstar on the roster instead of the elf with the number 11. The remote dualism was then enriched by the controversy over the rookie of the year award, even with one skills challenge literally played with blood in the eyes by Trae, and in Doncic’s first post-season wet by the historic buzzer-beater in game 4 of the first round against the Los Angeles Clippers that Young saw from home, after the penultimate place of his team in the Eastern Conference .
The turning point is a project that does not take off
The advent of Nate McMillan on the Atlanta bench changed the history of an all-time low roster with coach Lloyd Pierce in early 2020-21. The team has begun a gradual recovery culminating in a sensational appearance in the Conference finals then lost to the Bucks after the first round defeated the Knicks and the second against the Philadelphia 76ers. At that precise moment the phenomenon Trae Young definitively breaks the screen and everyone realizes the immense talent born in ’98. The rest is what 2021-22 offers today, with the Hawks suffering from injuries and covids and struggling with a very complicated first half of the season, in which Trae’s stellar performance alone is not enough to confirm the expectations legitimately placed on the team that ended up in the top 4 of the previous year. The absences in turn of Capela, Huerter, Hunter, Reddish, Bogdanovic and Collins have practically never allowed us to use the entire roster available, but more generally the few movements on the market (which could soon see our Danilo Gallinari involved ) and the absence of perimeter defenders in the team as well as a real reserve of the same Young has the Hawks project stalled, which today lives on the reflected light of its star but has not resumed the march of which the Conference finals were to be only the beginning.
In this technical and tactical desert, Trae continues to stand out as a player who alone makes the team marginally competitive, as well as essential presence to play an efficient basketball in an attack that statistically loses about 17.3 points out of 100 possessions without him. It is no coincidence that in the 48 minutes last night against Portland Atlanta he scored 117 points with him on the field for 37 of these, and 14 in the remaining 11 minutes. An offensive hemorrhage that is repeated no more and no less in every single game, making Young a real player valuable how the NBA tends to weigh stars like that, capable of keeping an entire roster afloat. In the umpteenth record night that further elevates Trae into the Olympus of the league and among its brightest stars, the frustration of not being able to aspire to more important successes makes every personal result bitter. But, at the same time, it offers us the idea to say that from that 2018 draft, the one in which he was labeled as a trading pawn for Luka Doncic, Trae has definitely exploded.
