Hawks finally allowed Trae Young to utilize his greatest strength

While Trae Young is a dominant player with the ball in his hands, the most efficient shot in his arsenal is his catch and shoot three point shot. Over his seven-year career, Young has shot 40% on 1.46 attempts a night, 5% greater than his overall clip from deep.

Despite Young's elite spot-up shooting, he suffers from his own talents. With how shaky his offensive supporting talent has been over the course of his career, he has been burdened with shouldering a heavy offensive load. Just 19% of his three point attempts have been off the catch.

Next season, however, Young will have the best supporting cast of his career. While he is still the clear primary option on the squad, he can finally delegate on-ball duties to his teammates.

What do the Hawks look like with Young off the ball?

Coach Quin Snyder has the challenging yet fun task of finding ways to involve Young off the ball. Jalen Johnson, Kristaps Porzingis, and even Luke Kennard have shown they are capable of initiating the offense. Each of these players impacts defenses in different ways, granting Snyder greater creative freedom when building his offensive scheme.

Johnson's explosive driving game demands the attention of defenses. He is a skilled ball handler who is borderline unstoppable in the paint. In turn, defenses will be forced to help off of lethal catch and shoot threats like Young and Porzingis to prevent an easy score in the paint.

In the clip below, Johnson finds a mismatch in transition against Mike Conley, who is eight inches shorter than Johnson. He immediately uses his physical advantage to create a paint touch and draws the attention of Young's man, Jaden McDaniels. Johnson slivered through the double team and hit Young with a clean one-handed jump pass for a wide-open three.

While Porzingis also threatens the paint, he does so with his exceptional post game. He is a capable operator in both the high and low post but tends to prefer the high post. His high center of gravity makes it difficult to back defenders under the rim. Still, his soft touch allows him to make off-balance shots that are essentially uncontested over the smaller defender.

When Porzingis finds a mismatch, teams have to double him to prevent an easy bucket. With his height advantage, he can see the floor clearly and make the correct read to swing to the open man. On the Celtics, this created easy looks for his co-stars Jayson Tatum and Jalen Brown.

Kennard is the wild card in this trio. He doesn't pressure the paint like Johnson or Porzingis, but his lights-out three point shooting forces overly aggressive close outs, giving Kennard a free path to the paint. While he cannot finish in the paint like his two teammates, teams can't just let him walk into a wide open layup and must help off their man. Kennard is a willing and able passer in these opportunities, ranking in the 90th percentile of potential assists per 36 minutes last season.

What may stop this duo is the defensive limitations of Young and Kennard. Young's reputation as an absolute liability is somewhat outdated, but he will always be a relatively easy target for forwards due to his height. Kennard, on the other hand, is truly a liability. This pairing could be untenable for Atlanta's defense, preventing the two from creating an offensive synergy.

All of these threats take a massive weight off Young's shoulders and will allow him to get easy rhythm jumpers throughout the game. While a reduced on-ball role could lead to a drop in points per game, expect Young's most efficient season in recent memory this season.