I was wrong about Trae Young

[IheartTHEhurt]

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[REHawksFan]

That doesn't change anything from what I said though. Doncic is still younger and is already a superstar. Maybe Trae can reach that level in the next few years but Doncic is already a generational superstar. I'm far from the only person that sees this.

2019:

Luka: 22.9 points | 8.8 rebounds | 6.6 assists | 3.4 turnovers | 1.1 steals | 0.5 blocks | .421/.301/.649 | -3.9 +/- | 10-20 w/l
Trae: 21.3 points | 4.3 rebounds | 8.2 assists | 3.8 turnovers | 0.9 steals | 0.1 blocks | .433/.384/.853 | -2.6 +/- | 13-23 w/l

If Luka is already a superstar (he's not) then so is Trae (he's not).

In November, when Trae was REALLY struggling, Luca didn't have to be "a generational superstar" to be better than Trae and make the Hawks look like fools for trading him away. Trae was doing all the work by looking like a bust. So certain people could still say they were right in their objections to the trade without Luca actually being a superstar (he simply needed to be marginally better than Trae, which he was).

In March, when Trae has damn near caught up to Luca statistically speaking after his self-admitted horrible start to the year, Luca must now have achieved "a generational superstar" status in order for the narrative to continue. It would be 100% foolish for someone to still claim Trae is a bust so they move the reality of Luca forward (over inflating) to stay ahead of Trae. That way their personal narratives of the trade stay in place and they still don't have to admit they are and were wrong.

[IheartTHEhurt]

We could very well have landed our superstar at last, and the thing is with Trae is that the sky is the limit with a fee tweaks to his game. Luka on the other hand is what you see is what you get. I don't see this guy becoming the overwhelming force Dirk was for a fee years. Not comparing the twos play style but their impact.

People tend to forget that Luka hoped a plane and just continued to play straight from Europe. No rust or no kinks to work out. Trae was rested and had to find his fit on an NBA floor. We are watching a primed 4 year pro and a what was a brand spanking new rookie right from the box. Hell Trae is still under warranty.

[Hazer]

:evil:

:D

Both players are great! There. That's settled. However, I do have a gnat pick. Free throws. Recently, that other
player, that Mr. Everything for the Mavs, missed all but one of his many free throws, costing them the game.

Remember, he's a veteran, been playing in Europe since age 16 - - And he can't make a free throw!

Wonderboy is a 70% foul shooter on the year and going down. Superstar? Yeah right!

Eggzackly. The “he’s not really a rookie, he’s played pro ball for years” Rookie is hitting the rookie wall and declining, while the “top 5 worst trade in history” Rookie has caught him in the ROTY race and ascending. Yet the former is the generational superstar?

[REHawksFan]

We could very well have landed our superstar at last, and the thing is with Trae is that the sky is the limit with a fee tweaks to his game. Luka on the other hand is what you see is what you get. I don't see this guy becoming the overwhelming force Dirk was for a fee years. Not comparing the twos play style but their impact.

People tend to forget that Luka hoped a plane and just continued to play straight from Europe. No rust or no kinks to work out. Trae was rested and had to find his fit on an NBA floor. We are watching a primed 4 year pro and a what was a brand spanking new rookie right from the box. Hell Trae is still under warranty.

Agree. What blows me away is that people act like Luka getting off to a better start than Trae is some indictment or knock on Trae but refuse to acknowledge that Luka was essentially starting his 3rd full year as a Pro. I don't really care about the age deal (which people make a HUGE deal of). Luka has been competing against grown ass men for two years prior to this year.

Does anyone care that Trae isn't on Ben Simmons level yet? Or Jaylen Brown? Or Buddy Hield? That's essentially what Luka is from an experience standpoint. I know the Euro league isn't the same as the NBA, but still. He was going up against grown men while Trae was playing against 15 year olds at some HS in OK.

The thing that impresses me about Trae is that once he got his feet under him, he's basically been step for step with Luka all year.

[EazyRoc]

Easy, I'll gladly grant you that there are exceptions to rules (ie, such as my "good defense starts" statement is put forward as a rule).

But don't throw around the term "statistically" if you're not actually citing statistics, but rather just some subjective perceptions. To be clear, to say Team X has a good or even great defense is not, on its own, good enough to be able to lay claim that you just made a "statistical" statement.

And conclusions only qualify as "rules" as opposed to "exceptions" at that point that one can provide some objective data and/or some logical lines of reason that support them as being rules and not exceptions.

Neither of us right now have provided any such data, and at the moment, I'm not even really that interested in pursuing it. I'm satisfied to believe what I believe until led to information that would prove otherwise. Conventional wisdom says that pawns are the first defense in a chess match, and ineffective use of your pawns is ultimately going to have a domino effect on the rest of your ability to defend your king.

Again, I post from my phone. It’s a pain in the ass to copy and paste things. I’m sorry if my use of the term statistically wasn’t up to par with your expectations. I gave you two and you were provided with a third example to do your own research. There are so many “exceptions” that the idea that you need a good/above avg defender at the PG position to contend is fallacious.

Your premise was wrong.

Wheew KG01....I survived a round with the “bulldog” without getting bit.

[marco102]

We could very well have landed our superstar at last, and the thing is with Trae is that the sky is the limit with a fee tweaks to his game. Luka on the other hand is what you see is what you get. I don't see this guy becoming the overwhelming force Dirk was for a fee years. Not comparing the twos play style but their impact.

People tend to forget that Luka hoped a plane and just continued to play straight from Europe. No rust or no kinks to work out. Trae was rested and had to find his fit on an NBA floor. We are watching a primed 4 year pro and a what was a brand spanking new rookie right from the box. Hell Trae is still under warranty.

You know I used to cringe when people use that as an excuse for Luka not really being a rookie, but here is De'Aaron Fox (9:40) saying

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Luka's pro experience did help him adjust to the NBA quicker than the other rookies. That doesn't mean he was expected to be this good, just that he was expected to have less of an adjusting period than the other rookies.

[IheartTHEhurt]

For the record I like Luka.. Seems like a good kid with a great game, but I despise his cult following that he has developed. Smh

[Spud2nique]

Soth comon man. You can’t complement him then say Doncic is better. That’s simply not true. If I’m building a basketball team I’m taking Trae because he’s playing with 4 other guys at the same time out on the floor and he’s a general. I think Trae exceeds Luka in leadership and heart as well.

Ps Rookie of the year ain’t over! Trae coming hard!

The blind homerism is in full force in this thread. Kinda pathetic to be frank. Doncic is 1.5 years YOUNGER than Trae and has already won championships as the best player on his team. If you don't see the difference between superstar talent and All-star talent then I don't know what else to say. Young is the worst defensive player I have ever seen in the NBA and he was the worst defensive player I have ever seen in college. You can't talk about heart and leadership when effort only comes on one side of the ball.

Young is still very young and has the chance to become a much better defender. You guys always trying to bad mouth Doncic because you know we traded the wrong guy is disgraceful and just an insult to basketball fandom. I get you guys want to homer ball him to the moon but let's don't talk silly. I made this thread because I thought Young would be out of the league after his rookie contract back but was still rooting for him anyways. I am pleaseantly surprised that he has exceeded my expecations. When I talked about Doncic in the pre draft and during the days after the draft my expectation was that he would be a generational superstar. He's proven me exactly correct.

I am just glad Young proved me wrong. If you guys want to nitpick what I say to try and only focus on the negatives instead of the positives than that's on you. I have as little interest as blind hate or blind homerism agendas as I did back on the Squawk.

Your generational superstar was 4-19 fg with 13 points 10 boards 3 dimes.

[Ice Trae]

That doesn't change anything from what I said though. Doncic is still younger and is already a superstar. Maybe Trae can reach that level in the next few years but Doncic is already a generational superstar. I'm far from the only person that sees this.

2019:

Luka: 22.9 points | 8.8 rebounds | 6.6 assists | 3.4 turnovers | 1.1 steals | 0.5 blocks | .421/.301/.649 | -3.9 +/- | 10-20 w/l
Trae: 21.3 points | 4.3 rebounds | 8.2 assists | 3.8 turnovers | 0.9 steals | 0.1 blocks | .433/.384/.853 | -2.6 +/- | 13-23 w/l

If Luka is already a superstar (he's not) then so is Trae (he's not).

Drives me crazy when people act like Doncic is on another level as a prospect when compared to Trae. They couldn't be anymore wrong.

[REHawksFan]

Saw a clip of the ESPN show "The Jump" where TMac and Zach Lowe were talking ROY and Lowe kept saying that the first 40 games matter so while Trae has closed the gap between him and Luka, the gap was so large that it doesn't really matter because Luka is winning ROY.

This really irks me as the whole basis of the argument is wrong. Trae had a miserable month of November which consisted of 14-15 games. Even if you throw in the Oct games, that's only 23 games that he really struggled in. Not 40.

Consider the comparison since December 1:

Trae: 50 games / 43.1% FG / 37.3% 3PT% / 19.9 Pts / 7.9 Ast / 3.8 Reb / 15.3 FGA/ G
Luka: 47 games / 42.0% FG / 31.5% 3PT% / 22.1 Pts / 6.3 Ast / 8.0 Reb / 17.2 FGA/ G

IF the last 10 games play out the way the last 50 games have, we will be looking at 75% of the season where Trae outplays Luka but because Trae's struggle was during that initial 25%, he doesn't have a chance with the voters. Ridiculous.

[kg01]

Saw a clip of the ESPN show "The Jump" where TMac and Zach Lowe were talking ROY and Lowe kept saying that the first 40 games matter so while Trae has closed the gap between him and Luka, the gap was so large that it doesn't really matter because Luka is winning ROY.

This really irks me as the whole basis of the argument is wrong. Trae had a miserable month of November which consisted of 14-15 games. Even if you throw in the Oct games, that's only 23 games that he really struggled in. Not 40.

Consider the comparison since December 1:

Trae: 50 games / 43.1% FG / 37.3% 3PT% / 19.9 Pts / 7.9 Ast / 3.8 Reb / 15.3 FGA/ G
Luka: 47 games / 42.0% FG / 31.5% 3PT% / 22.1 Pts / 6.3 Ast / 8.0 Reb / 17.2 FGA/ G

IF the last 10 games play out the way the last 50 games have, we will be looking at 75% of the season where Trae outplays Luka but because Trae's struggle was during that initial 25%, he doesn't have a chance with the voters. Ridiculous.

That absolutely drives me crazy. That's lazy, non-thinking on his part.

Voters who do their homework will have a tougher decision to make than these talking heads are willing to admit.

[pssshhhrrr87]

FWIW, Hawks as an entire unit are terrible defensively. The few games I've been to this season I've seen Collins out of position numerous times... Trae's defense will improve once he gets more talent around him.

[Sultanofatl]

Someone should send this to Zach

[observer1995]

Maybe unpopular opinion alert: Doncic may be younger than Young, but he was ahead of Young in his development going into the NBA by at least a year because playing in major AAU basketball for the most part is usually horrible with developing players. In AAU the top players are pretty much allowed to do whatever they want and are not benched for miscues, while in Europe even if the basketball player is a prodigy, WINNING is more important than developing the prodigy, and if the prodigy won’t play within a team and try on defense, they won’t play, no matter how talented they may be.

But to sum up where I was on Young, and this spanned the entire college basketball season and a bit beyond last year. At first, I was in on him being a potentially great player in the NBA. Then I was a little cautious as Big 12 play started but still felt he looked good, and this was at it’s peak around the first Kansas and Baylor game (the former I watched, and I felt like he did a great job of playing within himself instead of it being him and him alone). Then as he started to really get abused after that game, I was out. I felt he was too risky.

Then I figured that I’d just wait and see on him and that he had a chance, but we wouldn’t really see the truth until his second year. Some concerns that were there from some have been answered though. He ended up getting doubled and triple teamed because of Oklahoma simply not being all that good outside of him (and I saw on twitter that some people were saying Oklahoma fans need to apologize to Trae) and it was the main thing that hurt him with turnovers. Lon Kruger’s coaching also seems to have leaned on running a lot of offense through one guard in what I’ve seen if they’re big time and sometimes I don’t think that helps either.

Defense is a legitimate concern, but it’s a concern for most on the team. Without the Bud system there’s like only 2 players that can be good defensively on the team. I do think it’s a bit of a make or break for Trae though. If he gets to average or a shade below, I think he brings similar overall value to Nash/Lillard. If he never does, even if on offense he looks similar, his value will be similar to modern peak Isaiah Thomas.

[REHawksFan]

Maybe unpopular opinion alert: Doncic may be younger than Young, but he was ahead of Young in his development going into the NBA by at least a year because playing in major AAU basketball for the most part is usually horrible with developing players. In AAU the top players are pretty much allowed to do whatever they want and are not benched for miscues, while in Europe even if the basketball player is a prodigy, WINNING is more important than developing the prodigy, and if the prodigy won’t play within a team and try on defense, they won’t play, no matter how talented they may be.

But to sum up where I was on Young, and this spanned the entire college basketball season and a bit beyond last year. At first, I was in on him being a potentially great player in the NBA. Then I was a little cautious as Big 12 play started but still felt he looked good, and this was at it’s peak around the first Kansas and Baylor game (the former I watched, and I felt like he did a great job of playing within himself instead of it being him and him alone). Then as he started to really get abused after that game, I was out. I felt he was too risky.

Then I figured that I’d just wait and see on him and that he had a chance, but we wouldn’t really see the truth until his second year. Some concerns that were there from some have been answered though. He ended up getting doubled and triple teamed because of Oklahoma simply not being all that good outside of him (and I saw on twitter that some people were saying Oklahoma fans need to apologize to Trae) and it was the main thing that hurt him with turnovers. Lon Kruger’s coaching also seems to have leaned on running a lot of offense through one guard in what I’ve seen if they’re big time and sometimes I don’t think that helps either.

Defense is a legitimate concern, but it’s a concern for most on the team. Without the Bud system there’s like only 2 players that can be good defensively on the team. I do think it’s a bit of a make or break for Trae though. If he gets to average or a shade below, I think he brings similar overall value to Nash/Lillard. If he never does, even if on offense he looks similar, his value will be similar to modern peak Isaiah Thomas.

Just to be clear...Luka came in to the NBA with 174 games and over 3,400 minutes of experience (over 3+ seasons) in Euroleague against grown men. Whether he was developed intentionally or not, he had a SIGNIFICANT advantage over Trae coming into this year. He was, quite literally, a professional basketball player prior to being drafted.

And, imo, it played out as such as Luka looked like nothing phased him early on as he had been a pro for over 3 years. His "rookie" year in the NBA is really his 3rd straight full season as a professional. For Trae, it looked like he started out hot, then the reality of being in the NBA hit him hard and he struggled throughout November. But once he got his feet under him, he's been very impressive and dang near improved every month.

[DarthTater]

I underestimated Trae, and he has really improved dramatically over the last few months. I remember earlier in the year, someone mentioned Trae's combination of self-confidence but that he still displayed humility. I have therefore been a little troubled about his developing arrogance ("I'm the best rookie, or something to that effect.) I also am concerned about his developing trash talking too. Getting thrown out of games and getting technical fouls for trash talking your opponent is juvenile. I do not know for sure whether Trae or Luka is the best, but both are good. I do hope Trae can grow up though. I recognize that trash talking is a virtue for some of you, but I think it is a sign of immaturity.

[Deester11]

I underestimated Trae, and he has really improved dramatically over the last few months. I remember earlier in the year, someone mentioned Trae's combination of self-confidence but that he still displayed humility. I have therefore been a little troubled about his developing arrogance ("I'm the best rookie, or something to that effect.) I also am concerned about his developing trash talking too. Getting thrown out of games and getting technical fouls for trash talking your opponent is juvenile. I do not know for sure whether Trae or Luka is the best, but both are good. I do hope Trae can grow up though. I recognize that trash talking is a virtue for some of you, but I think it is a sign of immaturity.

Not even seeing the arrogance you're talking about. He got thrown out of a game for staring...seriously? He does have confidence and I for one will take that all day. Go to 5 games and listen to the crap they talk to Trae, the extra chips they give him on screens, etc. He should be talking junk. He backs it up and I never want him to back down within the scope of the team. Just don't agree with your post, but oh well.

[REHawksFan]

I underestimated Trae, and he has really improved dramatically over the last few months. I remember earlier in the year, someone mentioned Trae's combination of self-confidence but that he still displayed humility. I have therefore been a little troubled about his developing arrogance ("I'm the best rookie, or something to that effect.) I also am concerned about his developing trash talking too. Getting thrown out of games and getting technical fouls for trash talking your opponent is juvenile. I do not know for sure whether Trae or Luka is the best, but both are good. I do hope Trae can grow up though. I recognize that trash talking is a virtue for some of you, but I think it is a sign of immaturity.

Disagree wholeheartedly. First of all, there's a HUGE difference between confidence - which Trae is - and arrogance- which he isn't. Trae plays with an edge and with a certain swagger that you obviously don't like. I get that, but at the same time, it's what makes him successful.

Secondly, he wasn't thrown out of the bulls game for trash talking. He was thrown out for staring down a guy who was trash talking him. It was a pathetic call by the ref and the whole NBA was criticizing the ref for it. Honestly, you are making a mountain out of a mole hill with this take.

[DirtybirdGA]

In case anyone missed