Trae Young's chances of earning another All-Star nod just skyrocketed

When the NBA introduced the Play-In Tournament, the idea was to keep more teams in the hunt deeper into the season. Despite the pushback it initially received, it has worked and it has certainly benefitted the Atlanta Hawks who have been in it each of the past two seasons.

The league’s new twist will also be good news for the Hawks, and specifically for Trae Young.

The All-Star game, an increasingly stale product, is getting a facelift. At its core, it is an expansion of the field.

It will give more players a chance to showcase themselves on a national stage against other top players. But the league is taking it a step further, bringing two more teams and a tournament-style atmosphere into the revised format.

The league went to the Elam Ending, a target-score-based format. But that lasted one season. 

With the return to traditional quarters for the 2024 All-Star game, the league is clearly hoping to capture the energy the Play-In and former In-Season Tournament – now called the Emirates NBA Cup – have wrought.

Trae Young should benefit from expanded All-Star Game field

So how does all of this relate to Young? The Hawks star is having a rather atypical season. He is shooting the ball worse than he ever has, including from beyond the arc.

His scoring has reached the second-lowest mark of his career heading into the Hawks’ next matchup, a road date against the San Antonio Spurs. However, the argument has been made that he is playing the best basketball of his career. 

Young is averaging the second-most assists of his career.

But he is also leading the league in assists per game and doing so while posting the lowest usage rate of his career. 

Young ranks third in clutch scoring among players with at least 13 such games played – behind only De’Aaron Fox and Jayson Tatum – and sixth among those with at least 10 clutch games under their belt, per NBA.com data.

The league also shared information on how fans can vote their favorite players in.

Young was an All-Star in 2023-24, though that came as an injury replacement. 

He has not earned trips in back-to-back seasons and has missed out amid greater individual stats, which has only helped fuel the negative narratives about him.

This season has been different, though. Enough so that, even without the change, Young’s chances of breaking the trend and repeating as an All-Star seemed greater. The Hawks have a winning record and improved from last season’s mark through as many games.

There is a long way to go but no reason to believe Young or the Hawks will completely regress.

If their recent trends keep up – which have included flashes of Young’s shooting touch returning – Young could indeed be in San Francisco and playing on February 16.