The Atlanta Hawks boast the NBA’s reigning assist leader in four-time All-Star Trae Young, but that distinction is not the signal that Marcus Morris may believe it is.
Morris, who spent 13 years in the NBA and last played for the Cleveland Cavaliers and Philadelphia 76ers in 2023-24, claimed during a television hit that Young “just started passing” in 2024-25.
To that, Young suggested Morris do more (or maybe just better) research.
“Love Marcus, but this is why it’s important to WIN at a high level & win consistently kids. Human nature to live in the moment!” Young posted on X on May 27. “This how bad narratives are made though. ‘just started passing’? [laughing emoji] let’s do our research.”
According to Morris, Young, who led the league in total assists twice before earning the official season crown (per game) this past regular season.
Young actually leads the league in assists – per game and total – since entering in 2018-19.
“A position that’s starting to be extinct, because there is not a lot of point guards no more,” Morris told the panel on “First Take” on May 27. “Trae Young is a good player. He’s a good player in this league.
“He was shooting three-pointers; he wasn’t a point guard. He just started passing the ball, he was shooting 40-foot jumpers.”
Morris’ comments may not be as far off as they seem.
Young has often been accused of hunting assists rather than letting them come to him organically. He is, after all, also fourth in usage rate among qualifiers since the Hawks acquired his draft rights in 2018. His long-range heaves
Young has also been commended for taking on more of a leadership role, which the Hawks approached him about last offseason.
“I understand the space that we’re in right now. There’s probably two, really, teams that people in the – or maybe three – in the East that people really can see as contending teams. And for us, I don’t think we’re there yet, and I feel like that’s okay. I feel like here in a couple years we could be, or in the next year we could be,” Young told Chris Haynes on “The Haynes Briefs Podcast” on April 8.
“This is a good spot for us to work on the right habits. Because we have talent.”
So, Young checks the boxes for passing, though he also leads in turnovers per game during his career. He also embraced his leadership role more heading into his seventh NBA season. And table setters like him are indeed rare around the league.
He ranked third in passes made among players with at least 65 appearances in 2024-25, and was 11th in that same category (among those with 54 appearances) in 2023-24.
However, he was 20th in 2022-23 (65-plus games), 14th in 2021-22 (60-plus games), etc.
Morris’ point, perhaps delivered with heightened emotion due to the setting in which it was delivered, rings truer than it seems on the surface, even if there is some liberties being taken, again potentially for television purposes.