There seemed to be a little more pep in the step of Atlanta Hawks (31-33) backup point guard Delon Wright in the 113-110 overtime loss to the Detroit Pistons on Monday. It was Atlanta’s first overtime game and the loss wasted an opportunity to jump up to eighth and keeps the Hawks in the 10th spot in the East with just 18 games to go.
A quick glance at the box score will show that Trae Young struggled to 14 points on 20.0 percent shooting and hitting just 2-of-7 triples. Performances like that have all but guaranteed losses this season.
They are just 4-8 when he’s scored fewer than 20 points this year and 27-58 for his career but that is a topic for a different day
Wright did what he has done a few times this season.
Delon Wright has had a little more juice against his former teams
This season, Wright is averaging 4.4 points per game; the fewest in his career since his rookie year. He’s doing it on 44.3 percent shooting and 36.0 percent from downtown with 2.9 rebounds, 2.4 assists, and 1.1 steals in a little over 18 minutes per game across 59 appearances with five starts.
In 10 games (two starts) this season against the five other teams he’s played for, however, Wright is averaging 5.0 points per game with 3.5 rebounds and 2.7 assists on 41.3 percent shooting. But that is thanks to those starts.
Specifically, his four points on 1-for-7 shooting performance against the team that drafted him 20th overall in 2015, the Toronto Raptors.
He had 15 points on 5-of-9 shooting against the Sacramento Kings in his other such start.
While he shot just 37.5 percent in his two starts, he still managed 9.5 points, 5.5 assists, and 4.0 boards per game even notching seven assists and four rebounds to go with three steals in that six-point loss to the Raptors. In the other games, he averaged 3.7 points and shot 43.3 percent overall with 3.3 rebounds and 2.0 dimes.
The one thing he hasn’t done better than he has on average this season is hit the three, knocking down just two of his last 18 looks from deep. But he has averaged 1.6 steals when facing an old team; 1.3 in the non-starts.
Atlanta is 6-4 with three more games on the Hawks schedule against Wright’s former teams yet to come; one each against the Memphis Grizzlies, Pistons, and Raptors.