As the NBA season heats up and contending teams begin to separate themselves at the top of their respective conferences, the player market around the league is as active as ever. Not long ago, the talk of the town revolved around Giannis Antetokounmpo and the growing noise surrounding his long-term future with the Milwaukee Bucks. Now, however, the spotlight has shifted to another star who finds himself in a far less comfortable position.<\/p>\n
For the past few days, there has been growing noise around the league suggesting that Trae Young<\/a>\u00a0could be working toward an exit from the Atlanta Hawks sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n And boy was it soon… Just a few hours ago, it finally happened, and by the looks of it, Young, once viewed as one of the most electric playmakers in the NBA, has found himself on a downward curve in his career. According to Hall of Famer\u00a0Reggie Miller<\/a>, there is a very specific reason behind all of it.<\/p>\n Getting success too soon<\/p>\n If we go back just a few seasons ago, during the 2021 NBA Playoffs, \u201cIce Trae\u201d led the Atlanta Hawks<\/a>\u00a0on a memorable run to the Eastern Conference Finals. In the first round, he was undoubtedly one of the league\u2019s most clutch performers by dismantling the New York Knicks while getting booed by the packed Madison Square Garden. That momentum carried into the second round, where Atlanta booted out the Philadelphia 76ers in a hard-fought seven-game series.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n In both series, Young flirted with averages near 30 points and 10 assists, instantly becoming the superstar of the postseason. However, that same career-best performance, according to Miller, might have marked the beginning of the problem that is on full display today.<\/p>\n Because we have to be honest, outside of that Conference Finals appearance, neither Young nor the Hawks have done much since. The roster around him has arguably improved, but the results have failed to come with it.<\/p>\n So, where did things go wrong, one might ask. In typical \u201cUncle Reg\u201d fashion, Miller explained how Young has already peaked as a player, and he fails to work hard enough to continue improving his game.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n \u201cHere\u2019s the problem, sometimes it\u2019s getting success too early. I think his decline started when the Hawks went to the Conference Finals and lost to the Milwaukee Bucks, the eventual champions,\u201d\u00a0Reg said in his appearance on the \u201cDan Patrick Show\u201d just a couple of days ago.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I think things came too easy for him. And I am not in their practices, I don\u2019t follow them day to day, but I hear things. And when you year things that players don\u2019t like playing with him, he doesn\u2019t practice hard. He doesn\u2019t come early and work out. He certainly doesn\u2019t stay late\u2026\u201d\u00a0the Indiana Pacers legend added.<\/p>\n New home in D.C. after years of mediority<\/p>\n To be fair, when fully healthy and in rhythm, Young remains one of the best passers and offensive engines in the league. His ability on the offensive side of the ballgame is undeniable, but as Miller pointed out, the consistent chatter coming from people close to the Hawks organization says there is a problem behind the scenes.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n To put things into perspective, Atlanta sits at 18\u201321 on the season, which is still \u201cgood\u201d for the ticket to the Play-In Tournament, but the worrying part was their 2\u20138 record with Ice Trae in the lineup, which definitely says a lot about the situation with the Oklahoma product.<\/p>\n Now, the saga is finally over. Atlanta has pulled the trigger, sending four-time All-Star to the Washington Wizards in a deal that will see CJ McCollum and Corey Kispert coming to the Hawks.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Still \u201cjust\u201d 27 years old, Ice Trae gets a fresh start in D.C., and only time will tell if this move can truly get his career back on the right track or if Miller\u2019s words of peaking too soon prove to be correct.<\/p>\n Related: Draymond Green explains why OKC won’t break the Warriors’ 73-win NBA record: “That sh-t is hard”<\/a><\/p>\n This story was originally published by Basketball Network<\/a> on Jan 8, 2026, where it first appeared in the Latest News<\/a> section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the NBA season heats up and contending teams begin to separate themselves at the top of their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":524501,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[39474,208,7,7046,6339,123,34521,126,121,6,191,207,1279,494,468],"class_list":{"0":"post-524500","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-2021-nba-playoffs","9":"tag-atlanta-hawks","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-cj-mccollum","12":"tag-corey-kispert","13":"tag-giannis-antetokounmpo","14":"tag-ice-trae","15":"tag-indiana-pacers","16":"tag-milwaukee-bucks","17":"tag-nba","18":"tag-new-york-knicks","19":"tag-philadelphia-76ers","20":"tag-reggie-miller","21":"tag-trae-young","22":"tag-washington-wizards"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115858621442449665","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=524500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524500\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/524501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=524500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=524500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=524500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}