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

Both Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks and Trae Young of the Atlanta Hawks deserve Rookie of the Year honors, so why not give it to both of them?

When the Atlanta Hawks traded Slovenian phenom Luka Doncic in favor of diminutive college dynamo Trae Young, many experts immediately crushed Atlanta for taking a risk when a more “sure thing” was available.

Luka had years of proven production in the EuroLeague and Young was just a flash in the pan college outlier whose talents wouldn’t necessarily translate to the NBA – or so the narrative went.

Now, as this season progresses, it has become clear that both players are exceptional talents. As such, they should both be named Rookies of the Year.

This move is not without precedent, as co-Rookies of the Year have been named three previous times in NBA history per Land Of Basketball.

Most recently in the 1999-00 season, Elton Brand and Steve Francis were both named Rookie of the Year. Francis was a highlight factory to start his career, and Brand was a consistent performer for much of his career (including later on with the Atlanta Hawks).

Prior to that in the 1994-95 season, Jason Kidd and Grant Hill were both given the Rookie of the Year award. As it turns out, both players were hugely influential and both have now been named to the Hall of Fame.

Lastly, in the 1970-71 season, Geoff Petrie and Dave Cowens were both awarded Rookie of the Year honors. Petrie is a fascinating “what if” player in NBA history, as he averaged 21.8 points, 4.6 assists and 2.8 rebounds over the course of his 6-year career, but his career was cut short after a knee injury and a trade to (who else) the Atlanta Hawks. Cowens, a Hall of Famer, was a dominant big man for the 70s Boston Celtics who accrued 8 All-Star appearances, 3 All-NBA appearances and an MVP in the 1972-73 season.

Why Trae Can’t Win It Outright

Try as I might, there really is no case to have Trae Young as the sole Rookie of the Year winner. Even though Trae has had a tremendous year and has outplayed Luka since the start of 2019, there is just no way a formerly 19-year-old rookie that is producing in the way that Luka is producing cannot win at least a share of the Rookie of the Year award.

Just so we have it, Luka is averaging 21 points, 7.6 rebounds and 5.8 assists in 32.2 minutes per game with a 54.4 percent true shooting percentage per Basketball Reference. The only other rookie in NBA history to produce more than 20 points, 7 rebounds and 5 assists per game is Oscar Robertson… and that’s it.

Clearly, Luka deserves all of that praise that has been heaped upon him, but for some reason, many basketball “experts” and writers believe that the Rookie of the Year award has been all but decided, but here’s the thing: Since the start of the 2019 calendar year, Trae Young is clearly and undeniably the better offensive player.

Caveat: Luka is clearly a better defensive player, but that can easily be tied to his much larger size compared to Trae Young. While Luka’s IQ is sky-high and he is clearly a basketball savant, size is something that can’t be taught, and thus Young suffers in that category. Either way, defense likely does not matter that much for this award in any event.

Let’s take a look at some numbers for Trae Young compared to Luka Doncic since January 1, 2019 to underscore why the Rookie of the Year should not end before the All-Star break – as seemingly many pundits believe it did.

Stats for Both Players Since January 1

Again, this is not meant as a smear campaign against Doncic as his production all season has been truly astonishing, and Luka’s exploits were widely lauded on this site heading into the draft. Even with Luka’s recent swoon, his raw points-per-game production of 22.6 points since January 1st is tops among rookies per NBA.com.

Doncic’s 8.8 rebounds per game over that time frame rank second among rookies (only behind DeAndre Ayton) and his 6.6 assists are also second (behind only Ice Trae). He has also notched 6 triple-doubles in that time frame.

Just to reiterate: Those numbers are insane and clearly deserving of a Rookie of the Year award.

But over that same time frame, let’s look at Trae Young’s numbers: 21.6 points per game (2nd), 8.3 assists per game (1st by a wide margin), 4.3 rebounds per game (6th, which is impressive for a 6-foot-2 point guard).

He has amassed 15 double-doubles over that span, which is second only to Doncic and one ahead of walking double-double Ayton. Young also has the only triple-double by a rookie this season that doesn’t belong to Doncic.

In that time frame, no rookie is making more three-pointers per game than Trae Young at 2.5 per contest. Landry Shamet of the Clippers is just behind at 2.4 per game.

Let’s dig a bit deeper on Trae’s shooting compared to Doncic’s.

Shooting Stats for Both Players

Early in the season, the main argument against having Trae Young as a Rookie of the Year contender was his terrible three-point shooting. However, don’t look now, but Luka is actually shooting a worse percentage from downtown than Trae Young – over the course of the entire season.

Doncic sits at 33.3 percent from deep on the season while Trae is shooting 33.6 percent from beyond the arc this year.

Sure, the difference is minuscule and could change before tonight’s slate of games is finished, but still, if the entire argument around why Doncic is better than Trae was the three-point shooting disparity, that argument is now, frankly, obsolete.

Since the start of 2019, the difference is even more stark: Trae Young is shooting an impressive 38.1 percent on 6.5 attempts per game from long-range while Luka Doncic is only shooting 29.9 percent from downtown on 8 attempts per game per NBA.com.

Free throw shooting also tilts the scales in favor of Trae Young both for the season (82.1% for Young, 70.1% for Doncic) and even more drastically since January 1 (84.6% for Young, 65.7% for Doncic).

Digging even further into raw field goal percentage, Trae is hot on Luka’s heels for the season (41.7% for Young, 42.6% for Doncic) as well as in the widely admired true shooting percentage metric (53.9% for Young, 54.4% for Doncic).

Lastly, since January 1, Young is shooting better than Doncic from the field overall – 43.4 percent versus 41.7 percent.

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.

Conclusion

Here’s the thing: This is an amazing rookie class that is stacked with talent from top to bottom.

The depth of this class, as well as its high-end talent, has been mesmerizing to watch and seemingly all of the lottery picks have produced some stunning highlights.

However, there have only been three rookies that have scored 35 or more points in a game this season. Jaren Jackson Jr. did it once in November, Doncic has achieved the feat twice and Trae Young doubles up Doncic with four such occurrences – three of which occurred in 2019.

One of those games was the highest-scoring game of the season for any rookie: A memorable 49-point masterclass from Trae in the quadruple-overtime thriller against the Chicago Bulls. Those 49 points represented the highest total from a rookie since Brandon Jennings in 2009.

There is no question that Luka Doncic’s production this year is astonishing – especially considering he started the year at the tender age of 19. Doncic will clearly be an amazing player for the entirety of his career, and it has been a joy to watch his stepback triples and wild highlights all season long.

But that’s the thing, the season didn’t end in December. Since the new year began, Trae Young has been producing similar highlights on a night-to-night basis, but for some reason, Rookie of the Year is already decided according to many outlets. Something doesn’t add up.

Both players are amazing, and the record books need to indicate that both Luka Doncic and Trae Young were the best of their rookie class.

For that reason, Trae Young and Luka Doncic should be named Co-Rookies of the Year this season.