The Trae Young Question: Are The Atlanta Hawks Better Without Their Star Player?

The Atlanta Hawks have
been playing better while Trae Young is out with an injury. Is
their play
sustainable enough to move on from the face of the
franchise?

Coming into the season, a lot of folks were bullish on the
Atlanta Hawks.

After an uninspiring 40-42 campaign, they had one of the busiest
offseasons in the league, adding Nickeil-Alexander Walker, Kristaps
Porzingis and Luke Kennard.

On top of that, they could project internal improvement from
promising young players like Jalen Johnson (who missed the last 38
games of the year with injury), Zaccharie Risacher, Onyeka Okongwu,
Dyson Daniels and Mouhamed Gueye.

Hope seemed lost when the Hawks started 2-3 and Trae Young
sustained a knee injury that would keep him on the sideline for at
least a month. However, since then, they have an 11-7 record and
are starting to look like a formidable foe in the Eastern
Conference.

What’s going on here? Is Young’s return going to make them
better or worse? And is it time for Atlanta to trade its four-time
All-Star?

Why The Hawks Are Playing So
Well

When we
took a look at the Phoenix Suns’ hot start to the season, we
touched on the idea of lineup balance and how it was better to have
a team filled with players who complemented each other well than it
was to have one loaded with All-Stars.

In theory, that’s what this team had. Young was the offensive
centerpiece (13th
in offensive DRIP), and the Hawks have a ton of great defenders
and shooters to complement him.

But theory doesn’t always translate to practice, and while the
Hawks should have been able to hide Young’s weaknesses, he’s been
too poor a defender to scheme around. Young ranks 479th out of 488
players in defensive DRIP, and the Hawks have not had a top-10
defense (or even an average one) since he was drafted in
2019.

With him gone, Walker has stepped into the starting lineup, and
with a lineup of Walker/Daniels/Risacher/Johnson/Okongwu (or
Porzingis, when he’s healthy), their defense has looked
impenetrable. Since Young got hurt (18 games), the Hawks boast the
seventh-best defense in the NBA, per NBA.com.

Hawks D-DRIP leaders

The beauty of having a great defense is that it leads to more
stops and forced turnovers, which lead to run outs and shots
earlier in the shot clock.

During this stretch, the Hawks have the fourth-highest frequency
of shots taken with between 22-to-18 seconds on the shot clock. And
thanks to the litany of impressive athletes on this roster, most of
those quick looks are transition dunks/layups, which are easier
shots than pretty much anything Young could create for them in the
halfcourt.

Everyone expected the Hawks to be better on defense without
Young, but there was expected to be massive slippage on the
offensive end. However, the Hawks are 14th in offensive rating
since Young was injured. Even with increased transition
opportunities, you can’t be an average offense in 2025 without
having some sort of half-court offense.

This is the Johnson of it all. He’s always had the potential of
a player who could blossom into a future star thanks to his rare
blend of size, vertical prowess and ball skills. Well, the future
is now in Atlanta.

Johnson has gone from a high-level starter to someone who should
earn his first All-Star nod this season. He’s averaging 23.2
points, 10.0 rebounds, 7.3 assists and 1.6 steals per game, which
are all career highs. His efficiency is also the best it has ever
been (63.7% true shooting).

Having the ball in his hands has allowed Johnson to be more
aggressive (his number of free throw attempts per 100 possessions
is nearly double his previous career high), and given him more
opportunities as a primary decision-maker. If he can stay healthy,
he’ll be a top-25 player in this league for a long time.

Walker also deserves some flowers. He’s spent the last few
seasons being a 3-and-D ace for a successful Minnesota Timberwolves
team. But with Young gone, Walker has proven that he can do a
little more than just space and defend.

After averaging double-digits just once in his first six
seasons, Walker is now at 20.4 points per game with the Hawks. His
single-season improvement is demonstrated by him being tied for
13th in the entire league in DELTA (a metric that tracks the change
in DRIP from the beginning of the season to the present day).

Steals leaders NBA
What Happens When Young
Returns?

Right now, the Hawks look a lot like the 2024-25 Houston
Rockets, but without the intense pressure they put on the offensive
glass. And as last postseason taught us, you can only go so far in
the playoffs without a high-level creator.

Maybe Johnson proves to be that guy (offensive DRIP doesn’t love
his impact), but he has never proven that in a postseason setting.
Young has proven he is that guy. He’s perennially considered one of
the league’s best passers, and the Hawks are basically a layup and
wide-open 3-point machine whenever he’s on the court.

Plus, thanks to Young’s keen eye for hit-ahead passes, they were
still playing very fast when he was on the floor (seventh in
frequency of shots with between 22-18 seconds on the shot clock in
his five games). It is also worth mentioning that the Hawks have
been shooting better on 3s since he went down (37.3% without Young,
34.5% with him), so he was on the wrong side of shooting
variance.

In the perfect world, the Hawks are a better offense with Young
back in the fold, and their time without him has made them better
equipped to withstand his minutes on the bench (which has been a
major issue for them in the past). On defense, maybe the coaching
staff has come up with a solution for how to better hide Young.

The Trae Young Question: Are The Atlanta Hawks Better Without Their Star Player?

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