The Atlanta Hawks are now on the other end of Trae Young’s villain persona.
Young, the Washington Wizards star point guard, appeared this week on the “Curious Mike” podcast with Michael Porter Jr. During the episode, Young looked back on his time with the Hawks and eventually went on to take a swipe at his old supporting cast.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever had a teammate that can draw a double team,” said Young. The four-time All-Star did add though that he still had a lot of “great” teammates in Atlanta.
Here is the full clip of Young’s remarks.
Trae Young explains why he was never successful with the Atlanta Hawks:
“I don’t know if I’ve ever had a teammate that can draw double teams.”
Holy cook pic.twitter.com/YWtyuUOUIg
— Yaxel LendeBeast (@GMZeroOG) September 22, 2026
Young, now 28 years old, played for the Hawks from 2018-26 and emerged as the team’s All-NBA centerpiece. As a result, Atlanta’s offense effectively ran entirely through him as Young regularly ranked among the league’s leaders in usage rate every single year.
Now Young, who was traded by the Hawks to the Wizards earlier this year, feels like he did not have quite enough help during his time in Atlanta. That is despite the fact that Young led the team to an Eastern Conference Finals appearance in 2021 and also played with multiple All-Stars such as Dejounte Murray and Jalen Johnson. Still, this is not the first time that Young has taken a shot at his former team over the last few months.