During a recent edition of The Zach Lowe Show, Zach Lowe and Blake Griffin spoke about the Atlanta Hawks, discussing how things could look with Trae Young moving forward. If his play style and Quin Snyder’s play style don’t begin to mesh better, things could get dicey:
“And what you’re really talking about, big-picture with them is Trae Young,” Lowe said. “They’re either going to find the right direction with Trae Young. The way he likes to play is going to blend in a little bit more seamlessly with the all-around skills of the guys around him, and they’re going to find that identity. They’re going to land in the right spot. And we’ll know 30, 40 games in. And in that case, I think there’s a new extension to be had or a new contract to be had with Atlanta.
“If we get halfway through and it feels like there’s not a tug of war, but a little bit of stylistic dissonance, how Trae has played in the past and maybe prefers to play vs. how Quin Snyder wants to play. And how Jalen Johnson and Risacher and Okongwu and the other young guys on the team want to play with the draft picks they have coming in. I just think that’s an interesting dichotomy there, and maybe it goes the other direction.”
What will Trae Young’s future with Hawks look like?
Heading into this season, the Hawks were one of the trendy picks to be a competitive team in the Eastern Conference. They had a great offseason, adding guys like Kristaps Porzingis, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, and Luke Kennard.
Not only did they improve their defense around Young, which proved useful last year with the addition of DPOY and MIP candidate Dyson Daniels, but they also brought in more scoring and three-point shooting.
Yet through their first couple of games of the new season, things haven’t looked amazing. Obviously, it’s very possible that the Hawks just need time to gel, but they’ll have to make a decision regarding Young sooner rather than later.
He has a player option for next season and will inevitably be looking for an extension from the Hawks. Outside of his one run to the Eastern Conference finals in 2021, he hasn’t been able to lift the Hawks to much playoff success.
With how much he struggles on the defensive end and his relative inability to adjust to offensive play styles that don’t perfectly match his, Atlanta could potentially choose to move in a different direction and trade Young.
It’ll all depend on how well things go this season.