Trae Young What It Means: As was perhaps apparent before the draft, no rookie in this class contains a more volatile future projection than Young. He could harness his pre-draft potential and develop into an All-Star like Lillard or Walker, or he could wash out of the league before his rookie contract expires like Flynn. At the very least, like with Smith, his future in Atlanta might descend into immediate peril depending on the Hawks’ draft selections this spring. Young’s main problem is that his most appealing attribute coming out of college—the ability to create his own offense from anywhere on the court—hasn’t materialized in the NBA. He’s made just 29 percent of his 3s on 4.9 attempts per game; no rookie has ever taken so many 3s while shooting so poorly from beyond the arc. Young was compared to Curry coming out of college, but Steph shot 44 percent from 3 as a rookie on about the same number of attempts. (It’s also worth noting that this comparison was unfair, both because Curry is a two-time MVP and because in college, Curry was a 41 percent 3-point shooter, while Young sat at 36 percent.) Pictured: Trae Young putting the finishing touches on yet another 3/18 shooting with 8 turnovers performance Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images But Young’s problem isn’t only a lack of shooting touch. His usage rate is obscene for the kind of production he’s wrought from all that dribbling. Among all NBA players this season with his kind of usage, Young has the third-worst TS%, alongside 36-year-old Dwyane Wade and 34-year-old J.J. Barea. Even on a tanking Atlanta team, that kind of distribution is a significant concern. Making matters worse for Young is that the numbers used for this exercise don’t really capture the totality of his demerits on the defensive end. The similarity scores don’t know, for instance, that out of 473 NBA players this season, Young has the worst defensive real plus-minus. Atlanta’s defense is 7.4 points per 100 possessions better with Young off the court, while its offense doesn’t stumble by even half a point with Young sidelined. An inefficient scorer and porous defender has little future in the NBA, and while Young still has plenty of time to turn his career around—heck, Walker didn’t make the leap to All-Star until his sixth season—the early returns are mighty discouraging. https://www.theringer.com/nba/2019/1/8/18173374/nba-rookie-comps-lottery-luka-doncic-deandre-ayton
also from that article: Some of Kevin Huerter’s top comps resemble Bridges’s top comps. Will Huerter have a better NBA career than fellow Hawks rookie Young? He at least appears headed for a more stable, defined future than his more touted teammate—and for what it’s worth, he’s made more 3s than Young this season despite taking far fewer attempts.
Best case scenario for him is probably a poor man's Jamal Crawford, except he's like 6 inches shorter than Jamal Crawford
Why draft a great player when you can suck and then the following year get a high draft pick? That high pick could be a great player!
If Luka keeps this up, he'll be in the discussion for one of the best rookie seasons in NBA history, at least in the three-point era.
Lol luka way out in front of everyone. Does that graph take into account their professional basketball age tho?
Gaknight in the hawks thread. Trae Young shoots 1/12 and was easily the 2nd best player on the court. Absolute passing clinic tonight and made John Collins life easy.
Shut this thread down, the party is over. Today Trae Young has achieved a season win shares per 48 of zero. He is no longer actively costing his team wins.
Easy thing for everyone to type.... I (insert dumb opinioned poster here) was 100% wrong about Trae Young.
This is like Devine in our texts. Cherry picking a stat that makes him look bad now that he’s putting up 27 and 8 a night the last few games And can’t say his 3 pt shooting is bad anymore.
He also likes to ignore he’s the worst defender in the league and gave up 22 points on 11 shots to Rubio last night