Atlanta Hawks: Exploring Historically Good Start for Trae Young
By Chris Guest
It also doesn’t hurt that, statistically, Trae Young is in some rarified air.
Among his Hawks teammates, Young is leading the team in almost every major category. Seeing as he has the ball in his hands the majority of the time, Young is being given free rein to do whatever he wants on the court, which is usually a good thing for the Hawks.
Ice Trae is leading the Hawks in the following categories in terms of per-game production: points (19.1), assists (7.9), free throws made (3.8) and attempted (5.0) and total field goals made (6.7) and attempted (15.2). Only Taurean Prince is getting up more three-point makes and attempts than Trae as well.
Though Trae’s scoring is not quite up to the level of some of the best players in the NBA, his passing is already perhaps his most lethal weapon. One day after notching a career-high 15 assists against the Miami Heat, Young’s assist numbers are fairly impressive from a league-wide perspective.
Ice Trae is tied for 8th in the NBA with 7.9 assists per game – sharing that 8th spot with none other than The King, LeBron James.
Beyond that, Young has 71 total assists, which is also tied with King James for 5th in the entire NBA. Not too bad for an undersized point guard through the first 9 games of his career – while also carrying the scoring onus for an extremely young Atlanta Hawks team.
While those numbers are great, they are even more impressive when looked at through the lens of history.