Trae Young: Much will be riding on the rookie’s shoulders in Atlanta
By Chip Rouse
Former Oklahoma star Trae Young surprised quite a few people when he landed with the NBA team with the No. 3 pick in the draft on Thursday.
Only Young was the fifth player selected in the 2018 NBA Draft, not the third. OK, we’re splitting hairs, but the reality is the former Sooner star was selected initially by the Dallas Mavericks, who had the No. 5 overall pick in the draft. The player the Mavs were really after, however, had already been taken off the board, two spots ahead of Young.
The words of Young’s selection by Dallas by NBA commissioner Adam Silver served merely as the teaser for the real announcement: The Mavericks had traded the No. 5 overall pick to the Atlanta Hawks for Luka Doncic, the outstanding foreign player the Hawks had drafted as their top pick, in the No. 3 spot, and who some draft experts had rated as the best player available in the draft.
So Young introduction to the NBA will be as a member of the league’s third worst team in 2017-18. The Hawks finished the past season with an overall record of 28-54, a situation not that dissimilar from what it was when Young committed to play college basketball at Oklahoma, a little over a year ago.
The Sooners were coming off a frustrating 11-20 campaign in 2016-17, the year after OU lost three starters, including consensus All-American Buddy Hield, who was the No. 6 overall pick, selected by the New Orleans Pelicans, in the 2016 NBA Draft.
Atlanta’s top player this past season, point guard Dennis Schroder, will be in the third year of a four-year, $70 million contract. He averaged 19.4 points, but shot just 43 percent from the field and only 29 percent from three-point range.
Atlanta general manager Travis Schlenk says you see two point guards on the floor a lot in the NBA, and he has indicated that he is not opposed to putting Schroder and Young on the floor at the same time.
"“We want to put as many shooters around (Schroder) as possible to create floor space so he can do what he does best, get to the rim,” Schlenk told Norman Transcript sports writer John McKelvey and other reporters following Thursday’s draft at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, Mew York."
Atlanta also drafted Maryland shooting guard Kevin Heurter, with the 19th pick in the first round, and power forward Omari Spellman of the national champion Villanova Wildcats, with the No, 30 overall pick, giving the Hawks three first-round selections.
Young is expected to be the spark Atlanta needs to return to NBA relevance. Before winning just 28 games this past season, the Hawks had made the NBA playoffs in 10 consecutive years.
Schlenk, who helped build the current dynasty that is the Golden State Warriors, as assistant general manager there for a dozen seasons, says that success in the NBA today is built around players who can shoot, dribble and pass. Taking that into consideration, it is easy to see why the Atlanta GM is so high on Young and the former OU star’s potential to become a star in the NBA.
Young’s NBA story has yet to be written. He enters the league with as strong a resume as any player in the draft, but it is almost entirely based on offensive skills. Some have questioned his 6-foot, 2-inch height, lean size (under 180 pounds) and 6-foot, 3-inch wingspan as concerns that could limit Young’s ability to live up to the high potential that Atlanta sees in him and give up a higher draft pick to acquire him.
Young and the Atlanta Hawks just may find themselves in a no-win situation. Most everyone is expecting Young to hit the NBA hardwood running. Anything short of that, especially beyond his rookie season, will support the critics’ claims that the former Oklahoma phenom is overrated as an NBA player.
If the latter is the case, and Luka Doncic proves to be the outstanding player most of the NBA cognoscenti project, you can expect Atlanta to forever be linked to the 2018 draft and how the Hawks traded way the player that could have been the key to their turnaround and ascension back to NBA respectability.
Relax, Oklahoma and Atlanta fans, I don’t think Trae Young will allow that to happen.