Hawks may place Trae in Pelicans' new model of star management

Trae Young is having a rough start to his prospective return to glory after a devastating injury earlier this season.

In games where Young has played, the Hawks are a dismal 2-8 – on pace for nearly the worst record in the entire NBA. Without Trae, the Hawks have soared, winning an impressive 13 of their 21 non-Trae games. In total, they've sunk to below .500. Nobody expected Atlanta to be struggling to stay afloat with at the start of the year.

While Young is certainly not to blame on the offensive end for the Hawks’ struggles with winning (most evident of such a claim being his whopping 35 points and 9 assists on 7/8 from deep in a loss to the Bulls), his defense is a complete other story.

This massive shift in defensive efficiency is no coincidence. It has long been posited that a Trae-led team can never get over the proverbial hump that is the playoffs, almost entirely a function of his defensive weaknesses, which number many. While Young has, over the years, quieted this narrative with nearly league-average defensive metrics of late, this season he has sadly regressed to his numbers of old - this 14-point defensive efficiency gap is simply too great to ignore.

New Orleans has already found the solution Atlanta is looking for

New Orleans – a hot topic of discussion for Hawks fans recently, due to the trade this offseason – is running an interesting experiment with injury-riddled star Zion Williamson.

The Pels are running Big Z off the bench, allowing him to manage his minutes and dominate against weaker bench units, all while allowing his capable teammates to hold down the fort against full-size, full-strength starting units.

This experiment resulted in an incredible 5 game win streak for New Orleans (prior to a loss to the Cavs), seemingly unlocking the team's potential at all levels of the floor.

Just like Derik Queen has slotted very nicely into the large playmaker role that Zion once always filled, Jalen Johnson has slotted seamlessly into the same lead playmaker role that Trae once always filled. This redundancy is notable for both squads when Z and Queen share the floor, and when JJ and Trae share playing time. 

While it may be too farfetched of a move for the Hawks to ultimately try, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if this is the route Quin Snyder elects to march his team down, especially if Atlanta adds to an already dismal losing streak.