Trae Young is Ridiculously Underrated

[levon]

I'll never buy Trae Young. He's not good enough as a shooter to offset everything else. And he often takes long 3s because the defense takes away everything else, especially in the playoffs. You're never going to win with him as your best player, and the places on the floor he operates from doesn't make it easy for his game to jive with other shot creators.

[lebootz21]

I'll never buy Trae Young. He's not good enough as a shooter to offset everything else. And he often takes long 3s because the defense takes away everything else, especially in the playoffs. You're never going to win with him as your best player, and the places on the floor he operates from doesn't make it easy for his game to jive with other shot creators.

1. Took his team to the semifinals.

2. Made 1st team all nba.

3. Scored 28.4 pts 9.7 assists in a season.

4. Still hasn't reached his prime (24 years old).

Team him up with an all star big and he's contending for that ring.

P.S. STOP WATCHING HIGHLIGHTS AND ACTUALLY WATCH THE MAN PLAY!!!!!

This is why he is underrated. We no longer have true fans. We only have casuals who watch highlights and aggregate through stats.

[jayu70]

Ranking the NBA's Most Underrated Players of the Last 5 Years

Trae Young's entire NBA career is the five-year sample size we're talking about here. And it didn't take long for fans and pundits alike to focus more on his shortcomings than the fact that he's off to one of the hottest starts in NBA history.

Yes, he's small. No, he isn't a plus defender. And sure, his shot selection can leave you scratching your head. Young's 35.1 career three-point percentage might even be lower than a lot of people realize, too.

But even with those weaknesses, Young has been a massive plus for the Atlanta Hawks throughout his brief career.

During his five seasons, Atlanta is minus-0.6 points per 100 possessions when he plays, but it's minus-3.7 without him. If you limit the sample to the last three years, those numbers are plus-2.9 with Young and minus-0.7 without him.

Those numbers are the result of offensive engineering that few players across history have been able to pull off. Young has had almost exclusive control of most Hawks possessions when he's on the floor, and their offenses for his five seasons have ranked in the 89th, 99th, 99th, 97th and 93rd percentiles, respectively.

If that doesn't convince you he belongs here, maybe a bit of history will.

Young has 8,990 points and 3,285 assists in his career. Oscar Robertson is the only other player in NBA history to match or exceed both totals in his first 353 NBA games.

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10084372-ranking-the-nbas-most-underrated-players-of-the-last-5-years

[Asianiac_24]

Haliburton and Brunson are both better PGs and Trae is probably going to want to start. Any minutes you give to Trae is taking away from the other 2

[levon]

I'll never buy Trae Young. He's not good enough as a shooter to offset everything else. And he often takes long 3s because the defense takes away everything else, especially in the playoffs. You're never going to win with him as your best player, and the places on the floor he operates from doesn't make it easy for his game to jive with other shot creators.

1. Took his team to the semifinals.

2. Made 1st team all nba.

3. Scored 28.4 pts 9.7 assists in a season.

4. Still hasn't reached his prime (24 years old).

Team him up with an all star big and he's contending for that ring.

P.S. STOP WATCHING HIGHLIGHTS AND ACTUALLY WATCH THE MAN PLAY!!!!!

This is why he is underrated. We no longer have true fans. We only have casuals who watch highlights and aggregate through stats.

Everything I said was informed by watching him play.

[lebootz21]

I'll never buy Trae Young. He's not good enough as a shooter to offset everything else. And he often takes long 3s because the defense takes away everything else, especially in the playoffs. You're never going to win with him as your best player, and the places on the floor he operates from doesn't make it easy for his game to jive with other shot creators.

1. Took his team to the semifinals.

2. Made 1st team all nba.

3. Scored 28.4 pts 9.7 assists in a season.

4. Still hasn't reached his prime (24 years old).

Team him up with an all star big and he's contending for that ring.

P.S. STOP WATCHING HIGHLIGHTS AND ACTUALLY WATCH THE MAN PLAY!!!!!

This is why he is underrated. We no longer have true fans. We only have casuals who watch highlights and aggregate through stats.

Everything I said was informed by watching him play.

Trae can put up 28 pts/10 assists per game and he is not even in his prime. Who is your top 5 pg playing today?

28/10 is NOT normal.

You have to go back to prime Westbrook to see that kind of scoring/assist efficiency from a pg.

He's even better than prime Westbrook imo. He's more skilled and a much better shooter, and he has the all around scoring/assist dominance of Westbrook in his prime.

I'm really interested in your top 5 pg playing today.

[lebootz21]

I know you casuals like these highlights you only watch (only to aggregate the stats to make it seem like you know what you're talking about), so here is one:

Watch on YouTube

;pp=ygUWdHJhZSB5b3VuZyBoaWdobGlnaHRzIA%3D%3D

He's one all star big away from being a legit contender for that ring.

[SlovenianDragon]

Watch on YouTube

[lebootz21]

Watch on YouTube

Point proven.

You can't just watch highlights and then say so and so players are a bum based on stats.

You have to watch the full game to understand the impact the player has on that team.

I'm willing to bet most of these haters have never seen a full game. This tik tok generation simply can't focus their attention for more than 10 minutes let alone 2-3 hours.

They pretend they know the game, and they based all their premises on stats.

[GreatWhiteStiff]

Trae Young doesnt really do anything well but bait fouls and shoot FTs...

Poor FG% Poor 3pt% bad defender and led the league in turnovers...

Can he get better? Sure.

But as of now hes pretty lame.

He averages 26/9/3 on 58 ts% for his career but doesn’t do anything well?

Hawks led the East in scoring last year with 118.4 ppg (3rd in nba) with him running the team. The year before they ranked #2 in offensive efficiency.

Also the last two years the hawks have been

12.9 turnovers as a team (3rd lowest)
12.1 turnovers as a team (2nd lowest)

So he gets criticized for turnovers despite hawks being a low turnover team (and he’s the highest usage guy by far) and field goal %.

But he has so many other elite offensive weapons in atlanta helping to carry their offense!

[Def Leppard]

Ok trey

Sent from my SM-S901W using RealGM mobile app

[Rainwater]

I'll never buy Trae Young. He's not good enough as a shooter to offset everything else. And he often takes long 3s because the defense takes away everything else, especially in the playoffs. You're never going to win with him as your best player, and the places on the floor he operates from doesn't make it easy for his game to jive with other shot creators.

1. Took his team to the semifinals.

2. Made 1st team all nba.

3. Scored 28.4 pts 9.7 assists in a season.

4. Still hasn't reached his prime (24 years old).

Team him up with an all star big and he's contending for that ring.

P.S. STOP WATCHING HIGHLIGHTS AND ACTUALLY WATCH THE MAN PLAY!!!!!

This is why he is underrated. We no longer have true fans. We only have casuals who watch highlights and aggregate through stats.

He was never first team NBA, I think he made third team once.

[GreatWhiteStiff]

1. Took his team to the semifinals.

2. Made 1st team all nba.

3. Scored 28.4 pts 9.7 assists in a season.

4. Still hasn't reached his prime (24 years old).

Team him up with an all star big and he's contending for that ring.

P.S. STOP WATCHING HIGHLIGHTS AND ACTUALLY WATCH THE MAN PLAY!!!!!

This is why he is underrated. We no longer have true fans. We only have casuals who watch highlights and aggregate through stats.

Everything I said was informed by watching him play.

Trae can put up 28 pts/10 assists per game and he is not even in his prime. Who is your top 5 pg playing today?

28/10 is NOT normal.

You have to go back to prime Westbrook to see that kind of scoring/assist efficiency from a pg.

He's even better than prime Westbrook imo. He's more skilled and a much better shooter, and he has the all around scoring/assist dominance of Westbrook in his prime.

I'm really interested in your top 5 pg playing today.

Yeah westbrook really had that one season where he scored 2500 points, only one other season just above 2 thousand. Trae is averaging 2k his last two years, with league leading assists and higher bball ref offensive rating than westbrook's absolute peak (which was 115). Getting caught up on total points on the season was a bit dumb but whatever.

[iggymcfrack]

Trae's an excellent floor raiser. He's not a very good ceiling raiser and he would have been a terrible fit on team USA. Plus there's just an incredible glut of talent at point guard right now. I'm sure in another era, he'd stand out more, but Luka, Curry, SGA, Dame, Haliburton, and Brunson all have good arguments as top 15 players in the league right now. That's SIX guys. Compared to that, he's a level back for sure. Then you have Garland, Jrue, Murray, Ja, Harden all playing incredible ball. Trae can be playing at a high level and still be on the borderline of even being a top 10 PG in the league. It's not because he's not playing well. It's just crowded at the top.

[lebootz21]

Trae's an excellent floor raiser. He's not a very good ceiling raiser and he would have been a terrible fit on team USA. Plus there's just an incredible glut of talent at point guard right now. I'm sure in another era, he'd stand out more, but Luka, Curry, SGA, Dame, Haliburton, and Brunson all have good arguments as top 15 players in the league right now. That's SIX guys. Compared to that, he's a level back for sure. Then you have Garland, Jrue, Murray, Ja, Harden all playing incredible ball. Trae can be playing at a high level and still be on the borderline of even being a top 10 PG in the league. It's not because he's not playing well. It's just crowded at the top.

Since Trey is 1A and Murray and Jrue are not, I would put Trey in the same tier as SGA, Damien, and Curry, but not Luka since he plays more like a 2 than a true pg. SGA has never made it to the semifinals, so we can eliminate him.

This leaves only Curry and Damien as a higher rank, but if we go by recent events, the Hawks are playing much better than Portland, and they at least made it to the playoffs, so Trey technically should be ranked higher than even Damien imo. No way I would take Harden over Trey.

Only Curry is the better PG right now.

[Cubbies2120]

Trae's an excellent floor raiser. He's not a very good ceiling raiser and he would have been a terrible fit on team USA. Plus there's just an incredible glut of talent at point guard right now. I'm sure in another era, he'd stand out more, but Luka, Curry, SGA, Dame, Haliburton, and Brunson all have good arguments as top 15 players in the league right now. That's SIX guys. Compared to that, he's a level back for sure. Then you have Garland, Jrue, Murray, Ja, Harden all playing incredible ball. Trae can be playing at a high level and still be on the borderline of even being a top 10 PG in the league. It's not because he's not playing well. It's just crowded at the top.

Since Trey is 1A and Murray and Jrue are not, I would put Trey in the same tier as SGA, Damien, and Curry, but not Luka since he plays more like a 2 than a true pg. SGA has never made it to the semifinals, so we can eliminate him.

This leaves only Curry and Damien as a higher rank, but if we go by recent events, the Hawks are playing much better than Portland, and they at least made it to the playoffs, so Trey technically should be ranked higher than even Damien imo. No way I would take Harden over Trey.

Only Curry is the better PG right now.

Lol Luka's listed position is PG, so you have to include him there.

How about the PG who just put up 26/7/6 on 59% TS en route to a ring? If I'm a Nuggets fan, there is ZERO chance I'm taking Trae over Murray this upcoming season for a run to repeat.

[ConSarnit]

Trae Young is a very good scorer and an elite passer.

He’s also one of the worst defensive players of all-time (something the Hawks fans in this thread seem to be completely ignoring). For Trae to be a legit #1 on a title team he’d have to be elite offensively in the playoffs and he hasn’t shown he can do that. Combine playoff offensive slippage (common with small guards) with being an atrocity defensively and it’s tough to see him ever being a legit #1 on a contender.

[ChuckChilly]

Trae Young is a very good scorer and an elite passer.

He’s also one of the worst defensive players of all-time (something the Hawks fans in this thread seem to be completely ignoring). For Trae to be a legit #1 on a title team he’d have to be elite offensively in the playoffs and he hasn’t shown he can do that. Combine playoff offensive slippage (common with small guards) with being an atrocity defensively and it’s tough to see him ever being a legit #1 on a contender.

Hawks fan aren't ignoring his defense, it's just that most people use that as their talking point to downplay Trae's over all talent. There are lots of top tier PGs who are bad at defense (Morant, Lillard, Garland, etc.) yet somehow their strengths get talked about first and foremost when their game gets critiqued.

[kg01]

Trae Young is a very good scorer and an elite passer.

He’s also one of the worst defensive players of all-time (something the Hawks fans in this thread seem to be completely ignoring). For Trae to be a legit #1 on a title team he’d have to be elite offensively in the playoffs and he hasn’t shown he can do that. Combine playoff offensive slippage (common with small guards) with being an atrocity defensively and it’s tough to see him ever being a legit #1 on a contender.

Lie detected. We all see it. We just also see it (poor to middling defense) from most of the other pg's folks tout ahead of Trae - Morant, Haliburton, Garland, Brunson, Ball, and more. But it doesn't detract from people's opinions of them.

[HotelVitale]

Trae's an excellent floor raiser. He's not a very good ceiling raiser and he would have been a terrible fit on team USA. Plus there's just an incredible glut of talent at point guard right now. I'm sure in another era, he'd stand out more, but Luka, Curry, SGA, Dame, Haliburton, and Brunson all have good arguments as top 15 players in the league right now. That's SIX guys. Compared to that, he's a level back for sure. Then you have Garland, Jrue, Murray, Ja, Harden all playing incredible ball. Trae can be playing at a high level and still be on the borderline of even being a top 10 PG in the league. It's not because he's not playing well. It's just crowded at the top.

Since Trey is 1A and Murray and Jrue are not, I would put Trey in the same tier as SGA, Damien, and Curry, but not Luka since he plays more like a 2 than a true pg. SGA has never made it to the semifinals, so we can eliminate him.

This leaves only Curry and Damien as a higher rank, but if we go by recent events, the Hawks are playing much better than Portland, and they at least made it to the playoffs, so Trey technically should be ranked higher than even Damien imo. No way I would take Harden over Trey. Only Curry is the better PG right now.

If your only reason for saying this is team success and 'made it to CF' you have to realize why that doesn't work. Not just because it's always a bad argument, but also because the Hawks beat a phony NYK team and then an unraveling Sixers one, and Trae didn't have a very good series then anyway. He was junk in game 7 in particular, almost shot them out of the game and got bailed out by Huerter playing like a star against weak Sixers perimeter defense. That was pretty much the story of that series too--Trae ran the offense and did a fine job with that, but the Hawks won because someone always stepped up (Gallo, Lou Will, Huerter) at the right moment while the Sixers secondary guys didn't. Trae did his thing and shouldered the volume but he certainly didn't dazzle and 'win' that series with his single-handed great play.

Trae was also legitimately terrible in the MIA series last year. Seems like he hasn't had a particularly good PO series besides maybe that NYK one, and they really were an inferior opponent.

If you want to make a case for Trae you have to deal with the efficiency and the team limitations. We all know that he's great at eating up volume and is a master at creating, but his teams have greatly underachieved besides that one run against f'd up teams, and he hasn't shown that he can carry his team in the biggest moments. I appreciate him and think he's pretty dazzling, but in terms of him as an overall player he seems stuck being a great creator who's streaky and isn't able to take things over like top stars can. He's got time to disprove that but hard to see how it's not his basic story so far.