If You're A Trae Young Hater You're Really Not Going To Want To See This

[The Athletic] - Young is on pace to become just the fourth point guard in the past 20 years — and 10th all-time — to average at least 15 points and seven assists, joining Chris Paul, John Wall and last year’s Rookie of the Year, Ben Simmons. His assist numbers should grow as the Hawks add more talent, but so should his scoring opportunities and efficiency. Meantime, Young is dazzling with his passing and impressing with his maturity.

I’ve been with Barstool for three years now and I don’t think I’ve heard people be more sure that there would be a bust than they were with Trae Young this past year. I think part of it was the over saturation with ESPN’s coverage last year. It led to a ton of anger, especially if you weren’t an Oklahoma fan. People started to root for Young to fail and we saw teams start to really focus an effort on taking away Young during February and March of last year.

Then he was traded for Luka Doncic and people grew even more into him being a bust.

Then Luka started to have an incredible year. There’s no doubting that. But, we’ve fallen a bit into forgetting about the other incredible rookies in the NBA this year mostly because of what Doncic has done – which, again, is impressive.

Trae Young is playing on a bad Hawks team. Let’s get that squared away first. It’s tough to say for him to come in and immediately be incredibly efficient and downright awesome. But, look at those stats again. He’s on pace to do what Chris Paul, John Wall and Ben Simmons did. That’s not bad company to be in.

I talked to someone who is a scout with a team in the Hawks division. He spoke about how they are all impressed with his passing ability. That was one of the things not talked about enough during the draft process. He was always a gifted passer that got overlooked because of his gaudy scoring numbers. At the same time there are concerns about his defense, which isn’t shocking. The one thing that the scout told me is they expect shooting to improve and they don’t think 29% from three is who he is as a shooter.