The Atlanta Hawks have done an incredible job with their rebuilding of the franchise. They have put together an incredible supporting cast around John Collins and Trae Young who have been seen as the future of the franchise for a number of seasons now.
The Hawks even saw that Young would be a better franchise player than Luka Doncic when they traded back for him in the 2018 NBA draft. While Doncic has more individual awards, Young has led his team deeper into the playoffs than the Slovenian superstar.
He has done this by being an absolute offensive maestro. The control that he has on the offensive end of the court is next level. He has been second in assists per game for the last two seasons as well as scoring at a high level.
The Atlanta Hawks benefit greatly from Trae Young’s game
To put it simply, the Hawks would not be in the same position that they are at the moment without Trae Young. Doncic appears to have put a championship-winning coach offside. Rick Carlisle appeared to leave due to differences about how he wanted the Mavericks to play.
Young is a top-20 scorer in the league and also going to lead the league in assists multiple times. The reason he is able to achieve this is his speed and his decision-making. It is a combination that is going to trouble defenses for years.
Incredibly, Young has led the league in assists to dunks in all three seasons that he has been in the league. Collins has been his favorite target but last season Clint Capela was another willing recipient of Young’s passes.
Last season he had 160 assists to dunks, a number which was 34 more than any other player in the league. Young manages to freeze the defense by beating his opponent off the dribble and then has that floater which draws the opposition rim protector away from his man. Young can then work his magic.
The Hawks point guard was also the only player who had 125 assists to two different teammates. He handed out 141 assists to Collins and 131 to Capela. Now, the next step is to bring in the rest of the squad to make the Hawks even tougher to beat.