With two games played, Hawks guard Trae Young seemingly has avoided those slow-start woes that have plagued him in the previous two seasons.
The Hawks guard has begun this season as aggressively as he did in years before. But this time, things have clicked, with the Hawks needing all of his offense as the team adjusts to the new makeup of its roster. In two games, Young has averaged 34 points, 6.4 rebounds and 11 assists, while shooting 45% from the floor, including 35% from 3.
In Friday’s 125-120 win over the Hornets, Young played a strong all-around game. He scored 38 points, dished 10 assists and had eight rebounds and four steals.
He already leads the NBA in total assists and is tied with Hornets guard LaMelo Ball, behind Lakers center Anthony Davis, in total points through two games.
“Yeah, it’s good,” Young said after the game. “I mean, it’s not going to be the same every night, obviously, like, but you want to, you want to try to strive to have that every night. Like, for me, like, I’m not learning to get rebounds every night. But there’s certain nights that may cause and may be for me to go out there and do that. They were tipping the ball out a lot, and they still got too many offensive rebounds, and that was a focus point going into this game because the last game goes that way. So that’s something that we can get better at. And so for me as a guard, trying to get those long rebounds something that’s important, and I got to keep doing that.”
It’s a far better start to the season than Young had the past few years. In the first two games of the 2022-23 season, he shot 30.4% on 14-of-48 overall shooting. He made only five of his 20 3-point attempts. The Hawks opened that season 2-0 before losing to the Hornets in the third game.
The following year, Young opened the season shooting under 30% overall, going 8-of-35 from the floor and making only 3 of 14 3-point shots.
While Young has had a solid start, the Hawks guard is far from satisfied.
“For me, one thing that I do check during the game is how many turnovers I have, and tonight, I have way too many turnovers,” Young said. “No matter what I did throughout the game, good. For me, as I get people involved and things like that, try to take care of all as much as possible so we can at least get a shot up. And sometimes I’m trying to get guys involved, and early on right now‚ sometimes it’ll be missed plays or some certain things that just won’t go our way, and I’ll have a turnover. But that’s something that I really try to be better at.”
But like last season, Young has looked to turn up his effort on defense, and he’s hustled on both ends of the floor. Young ranks in the top 20 players through two games in deflections, and his average 2.5 steals per game ties him with six other players.
“I think he’s probably more proud of the rebounds, his defense than he is the other end,” Hawks coach Quin Snyder said. “And the Seth Curry matchup (Friday) is a tough matchup. There’s times people put him in pick-and-roll, and he just battled. He competed, and his ability to do that and then, have trust in his teammates when we do get in the matchup situation and he can attack, him being able to balance his ability to score, his ability to pass, with just making a simple pass and trusting someone else and having the ball come back to him.
“And I think those things show maturity. It’s really important to him as a player, and it shows the connectedness that, he’s going to get dirty, too, and we all have to get dirty, that’s how you win. We need to continue to reinforce that as a group. But I know he’s proud of that fact. And the way that we executed, in the fourth quarter, on the offensive end.”
Young and the Hawks return to Oklahoma City to face the Thunder on Sunday for the second time in 10 days. The Hawks concluded their exhibition season against the Thunder in Oklahoma City, but Young and the majority of the top rotational players sat for that game.
The Thunder handed the Nuggets a 102-87 loss in their season opener and will be on the second night of back-to-back games.
But Young will continue to have an aggressive mindset.
“I think that’s the main thing,” Young said when asked of his mindset. “I just, I can’t stop being aggressive at any point in the game, no matter if my shots fall and if I’ve had a couple of turnovers here and there. Like, I got to continue to stay aggressive for my teammates. Because, I mean, that’s what draws two people. That’s what, it pulls gravity.
“So whenever I do make one or two shots, then they’re trapping me at half-court. And then I get to see my teammates play four-on-three on the backside. So no matter if I do miss a couple of shots and I stay aggressive, if I hit a couple, I mean, the team is going to respect that, and then it opens up everything else.”
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