Atlanta Hawks: Trae Young & Luka Doncic Should Be Co-Rookies of the Year

Advanced Stats for Both Players

For the most part, rookies are almost always negative players on their team. Even with this stacked rookie class featuring a glut of impressive performers, only 3 rookies that have played more than 30 games since January 1 have a positive net rating: Landry Shamet, Harry Giles and Josh Okogie.

However, scrolling down the list just a bit lets you find Trae Young at 7th in net rating among rookies per NBA.com at -3.0, which is far ahead of Doncic at 13th overall with a -5.4 net rating. In fact, even Doncic’s rookie teammate Jalen Brunson is ahead of him at -5.2.

The only rookies that have a higher offensive rating than Young over that time frame are Shamet, who is on a playoff team right now, and Young’s beloved teammate Kevin Huerter (aka Red Pepper). Doncic is 11th.

Since January 1, Trae Young has a higher assist percentage (38.5%), assist-to-turnover ratio (2.14), effective field goal percentage (51.1%), true shooting percentage (57.3%) and on/off rating (-1.5 per game) than Luka Doncic does over that same span.

Beyond that, Trae Young is the only rookie since Michael Jordan and Stephen Curry to produce five 30-point and 10-assist games, and if he logs one more, he will be in second place by himself in that category in NBA history behind only the aforementioned Oscar Robertson.

Trae was also just named Player of the Week for last week, making him the only rookie this season to be bestowed the award and only the third rookie over the past four seasons to be given such an honor, joining Ben Simmons and Karl-Anthony Towns from years past.