Last chance: before the Eagles and Trae Young!

Ask a question: What kind of player can be called a winning player?

This is a question that is difficult to answer with standard answers. The best answer depends largely on the team environment, the timing of the championship, etc. No player can fully control everything. However, if Trae Young is unable to lead the Hawks to achieve stable results in the new season, then the problem is probably himself.

Building a team around stars like Trae Young can be both simple and difficult. Give him enough shooter resources, paired with an inside line that can be assisted, and a defensive system that can strengthen his defensive weaknesses, so he can basically do the rest of the work. Just like Doncic during the Mavericks.

However, in recent years, this type of point guard who takes the ball as the core and offense first has begun to be increasingly questioned by the outside world, and judging from their team-leading performance, these doubts are not groundless.

If an offensive genius of Harden's level cannot lead the team to win the championship, then who else can break through this type of upper limit? The Trail Blazers couldn't help Lillard find the answer, and neither did the Bucks. Although the Mavericks reached the finals by Doncic, they still don't believe that this path can work. In contrast, Brunson is facing the same doubts in the Knicks now. He is a singles scorer who is difficult to limit, but the defensive problems are quite obvious. Even so, he led the team to the Eastern Conference Finals, and Trae Young had done something similar before.

Brunson is still in a stable stage, and Trae Young's highlight moment seems to have passed. In 2021, the Hawks broke into the Eastern Conference Finals, and Trae Young seemed to be the protagonist player on the playoff stage at that time. But since then, the Hawks have achieved a cumulative record of 160 wins and 168 losses.

In this process, the team fired a head coach, and there was no improvement after the change of coaches, and bet on a lot of resources for Dezhangtai Murray, but the deal ultimately failed. In the past four seasons, the Hawks missed the playoffs twice and were eliminated in the first round two in the other two.

Trey Young participated in all these highlights and troughs. He has played more than 73 games in three seasons in the past four seasons, with a stable attendance rate, and the Hawks are also talented, including Murray, Collins, Capela, Bogdan, Hunter, Hult, Okonggu, Jaylen Johnson, Dyson Daniels, and the 2024 draft No. 1 pick Risache. Looking at it, this lineup is definitely not ordinary.

However, according to statistics, in the past four years, Trae Young's net efficiency in the Hawks has been only +3. At the top offensive level, the defensive end has performed poorly. In the long run, this is definitely not a winning mode, it can only be considered as barely supporting the team.

And in the playoffs, this situation is even worse. Even in the short-lived 2021 series, Trae Young's overall shooting percentage in 37 playoffs was only slightly higher than 40%, and his three-point shooting percentage was less than 30%. Of course, hit rate does not represent everything. Trae Young's offensive threat is still large enough, with the average data per game between the two rounds of the series being close to 30+10. With such data, people can't help but wonder whether Trae Young is the kind of star with beautiful data but can't lead the team?

In the new season, Trae Young can get a chance to truly rewrite this stereotype. No one thinks the Hawks can win the championship, but they are a pretty good team. More importantly, this team's lineup is completely tailored for Trae Young.

From the most important point, Jaylen Johnson will return from a shoulder injury. He is a future All-Star player and his partner Trae Young has excellent chemistry when he is on the court. According to statistics, when the two are on the court, the Hawks have a net better than their opponents by 6.3 points per 100 rounds, and their defensive efficiency is better than that of more than 70% of the teams in the league. This part is still worthy of being optimistic.

, plus three defensive sharp swords, Daniels, Alexander Walker and Rissache, these three can replace almost all non-inside opponents on the field, which is expected to make up for the loopholes in Trae Young's defensive end. In addition, they also have excellent defenders in the penalty area: Okonggu and Porzingis. The Hawks traded for the latter this summer, while the Pope limited the opponent's shooting percentage to 42% last season when facing defense, which is even better than both Vinban Yama and Davis.

Just imagine that Trae Young is paired with Jaylen Johnson, Alexander Walker, Daniels, Posses or Okongu. If this combination cannot win more than 50 wins in the East, or even fail to break through the first round, then this is probably the responsibility Trae Young should bear.

And what can we say to Trae Young then? Are there any other comments besides "He is not a winning player"? It is undeniable that he has the opportunity to turn this around. In addition to the defensive compensation, the most critical link at the offensive level is that Trae Young can have the opportunity to form a pick-and-roll duo with Posses, and develop more scoring methods under the excellent offensive basic set.

We can imagine a situation. When the team's space is widened, Jaylen Johnson cuts from the weak side to the all-in-one, and Trae Young holds the ball in the middle to control the situation. Thinking about this kind of picture can make people look forward to it.

Looking back at the journey in 2021, it is truly a wonderful memory for Hawks fans. He calmed the audience in Madison Garden Square and defeated the 76ers of the Double Emperors. If he hadn't been injured in the end, the Hawks might have even defeated the Bucks and entered the finals, standing opposite the Suns, and even having the chance to compete for the championship.

Of course, these are just things that are imagined. From the subsequent perspective, perhaps the Hawks should not have been overconfident about this unexpected playoff journey at that time. They later renewed their contract with Collins and left coach McMillan, and continued to use the original team but did not return to the Eastern Conference Finals. Murray's deal was positive, but he and Trae Young never really worked out successfully..

The chaos of the team's senior management, the mutual exclusion of the new lineup, and the ever-changing lineup have affected the team's subsequent development. Or if they could draw a potential No. 1 pick last year, the Hawks might have a chance to rewrite a lot of things early.

There are some special parts: Trae Young's three-point shooting percentage in his career has never exceeded the league average, and there are very different two seasons in the past three years; more serious is that he almost never participates in the running when he is off the ball; there is also defense. Even a player like Curry, who has always been criticized for not being a top player, still let himself reach a qualified defensive level after hard training, and how much strength can Trae Young contribute to defense?

In short, as the core of the Hawks, Trae Young must be responsible for the team's failures, especially now, he seems to have no excuses for failure. According to previous news, the Hawks will offer him a maximum salary renewal contract, but the cruel reality is that if you pay the maximum salary to players with good personal data and poor team performance, you will probably always be a losing team.

This is why last summer, when the Hawks were interested in selling Trae Young, few teams in the market were willing to offer prices. Because no one can guarantee whether Trae Young is a winning player?

But now, in the upcoming new season, this question is about to be answered, and Trae Young is finally able to usher in the best chance to prove himself in his career.