Trae Young gets honest about Atlanta Hawks career: ‘There’s more out there’

The Atlanta Hawks’ franchise cornerstone is not satisfied.

“Whenever you’re in this position, you never feel like it’s enough,” Trae Young said on the second episode of ‘From the Point by Trae Young‘ on June 9. “You always feel like you want more – like there’s more out there. I mean obviously, I haven’t won everything. I haven’t won really anything, to be honest with you.

“I’ve gone into the Conference Finals which is cool. But, in my eyes, if you don’t win the championship, that ain’t enough.”

Young led the NBA in total assists for the second consecutive season – part of a 26.2-point, 10.2-rebound, 3.0-rebound campaign. He did not shoot the deep ball particularly well, knocking down 33.5% of his triples.

That was his lowest mark since his rookie season and also came amid the first year-to-year dropoff in his overall efficiency which did not sit well with the two-time All-Star.

“This year I didn’t shoot the ball the best…I don’t want to blame it on anything, but I feel like I could have been a lot better,” admitted Young. I know going into next year I’m gonna be a lot better and getting back to what…my standards are for myself and even getting higher than that.”

In addition to his two All-Star appearances, Young was named to the 2018 All-Rookie team and earned All-NBA honors after the 2020-21 season

Young said his goal is to always lead the NBA in assists but not for individual gain.

“I’m not necessarily just trying to chase that but I know if I do it’s getting my teammates involved, just making everybody else around me get paid. That’s important to me so that’s really the main thing for me is really just try to get my teammates involved and try to lead the league in assists every year because I know that’s going to make my teammates happier.”

Of course, no one is happy with losing and, the Hawks have been bounced out of the playoffs in the first round in back-to-back seasons after that magical run to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2021.

“It’s tough when you’re declining, and when you go from the Conference Finals down,” said Young. “But it’s so hard to get to that point.”

Atlanta Hawks’ Trae Young sends telling message on NBA Finals

Young has been an active viewer of the action this postseason, reacting to standout performances in nearly every series. The NBA Finals have been no different and that continued after Game 4.

That innocuous message is very telling about this series.

Denver has been able to manufacture offense even without two-time MVP Nikola Jokic on the floor for the brief time he has sat whereas, for Miami, it’s been a lot of Jimmy Butler-or-bust as the postseason has worn on.

But, to Young’s point, Butler scored 28 points in Game 3 and then dropped 28 points in a seemingly critical Game 4, both in Miami. Denver won both contests to take a commanding 3-1 lead back home to potentially close out the series on June 12.