Tag: trae young

Is the Hawks’ recent dysfunction due to the growing influence of the owner’s 27-year-old son?

“Key Hawks figures were feeling undermined by Nick Ressler’s influence became a growing issue internally.”

This has not been an ideal first half of the season for the Atlanta Hawks, who currently have a losing record and are in danger of missing the playoffs.

The Hawks were expected to take a leap forward after trading for two-way guard Dejounte Murray, whose defensive prowess was expected to help Trae Young and create an All-Star duo in the backcourt.

Instead, after lofty preseason expectations, there have been several lowlights both on and off the court — including beef between Young and Hawks coach Nate McMillan that has led some insiders to speculate the former Oklahoma guard may actually get traded.

Amidst the drama, Hawks executive Travis Schlenk announced last month that he would resign as president of basketball operations. Before his tenure with the Hawks, he previously worked in the Warriors’ front office and he was considered massively influential in Golden State’s decisions to draft Klay Thompson and Draymond Green.

Schlenk has moved into an advisory role, though Atlanta’s John Collins recently put air quotes around the title when he described it to The Athletic’s Sam Amick.

Amick also reported that Nick Ressler, who is the 27-year-old son of Hawks owner Tony Ressler, has gained “increased influence on roster and staffing decisions” over the past few years (via The Athletic):

“As Fox Sports’ Ric Bucher reported recently, league sources confirmed to The Athletic that Nick Ressler’s effect on the decision-making process played a pivotal part in the power dynamics that ultimately lead to Schlenk’s exile. This was a bit of an open secret around the league, and it is clear that Nick Ressler’s voice is being heavily considered on all things Hawks these days.”

While we do not know exactly what happened, Amick’s report that Ressler’s increased role played a “pivotal part” in Schlenk’s departure is notable.

Amick also added that key figures within the organization were “feeling undermined” by Ressler, and it has become a “growing issue internally” in recent months.

“As I discussed on a December podcast visit with The Ringer, this reality that key Hawks figures were feeling undermined by Nick Ressler’s influence became a growing issue internally in recent months – specifically in relation to Trae Young — and had everything to do with Tony Ressler’s choice to overhaul the staff. The Dejounte Murray trade with San Antonio was the beginning of the end, as sources say it went down despite Schlenk expressing his concerns about the price being paid (three first-rounders, a first-round pick swap and Danilo Gallinari) and with Nick Ressler known to be a driving force behind the deal.”

Ressler is reportedly considered closer to Young than Schlenk was, so Young may feel even more empowered within the franchise than he previously felt.

Others who may feel more empowered include former NBA players Landry Fields (who was elevated to general manager in June) and Kyle Korver (who will reportedly become the assistant GM).

Grant Liffmann (a former media member and a close friend of Fields who works in Atlanta’s front office) and Ryan Silverstein (a close friend of Ressler who works in Atlanta’s front office) are also considered influential within the organization.

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Trade rumor rankings: Trae Young, Zach LaVine and more

HoopsHype ranks the five players who have appeared most often in trade rumors over the prior week, led by Trae Young and Zach LaVine.

It’s time for another edition of our NBA trade rumor rankings series, where we rank the five players who have appeared most often in trade rumors over the past week, judged by appearances on our page.

We have a few fresh names on the list this week, star names at that, and although all of the recent scuttle indicates this could be a quieter deadline with so many teams believing they have a shot to make a deep playoff run, we’re sure we’ll get a surprise or two out of the trade market.

Below, check out our latest trade rumors ranking.

NBA Twitter reacts to Trae Young trade rumors: ‘Ice Trae to the Pelicans would be fun’

Here’s how NBA Twitter reacted to the trade rumors surrounding Trae Young in Atlanta.

According to Chris Haynes, executives around the NBA believe Trae Young could request a trade out of Atlanta.

The Hawks aren’t in a very good place right now, and NBA Twitter had a few things to say about the rumors surrounding Young.

NBA Executives believe Trae Young might be the next star to request a trade, but it’s way too early for that

Trae Young isn’t going anywhere. Let’s stop the madness.

The NBA is a strange place. One day, you can be first in the Eastern Conference. The next day your team can be splintering with one of your three superstars requesting a trade.

That’s just the way the league works — at least over the last decade or so. Star player movement is the norm in the NBA.

But it’s still a bit shocking to hear that rival NBA executives think Trae Young might be the next star player to request a trade out of Atlanta. But that’s apparently a thing, according to reporting from Bleacher Report’s Chris Haynes.

This is coming from pure speculation by rival executives at the G League Winter Showcase.

“Rival executives in attendance at the NBA’s annual G League Winter Showcase are of the belief that Atlanta Hawks star point guard Trae Young could be the next player on a rookie max extension to request a trade if the team doesn’t make inroads come postseason time.”

To be completely honest, this just feels like unsubstantiated speculation here. There doesn’t really seem to be much to it.

It’s another rival executive anonymously cited here saying “watch that Trae Young situation in Atlanta” with nothing really backing it up aside from a reported rift between Nate McMillan and Trae Young.

There’s almost no chance that this actually happens. There are a few reasons why. Let’s dive into them.

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Trae Young wore ‘King of Broadway’ shoes before a Knicks’ blowout win, and NBA fans roasted him

Young’s stunt about the Knicks blew up in his face immediately.

Few players might as take as much joy driving a dagger into the New York Knicks’ heart as Trae Young. Since entering the NBA in 2018, the Atlanta Hawks’ star has developed a reputation for being a “Knick killer” of sorts — especially when he gets to play at Madison Square Garden.

On Wednesday night, Young had a presumptuous plan for a matchup with the Knicks at the Garden. In a gesture of presumed confidence, the point guard wore shoes that read “King of Broadway.” They were undoubtedly in reference to his joy in playing well and beating the Knicks in their home digs whenever he can.

Oh wow, those look pretty slick! Now, if only Young’s gesture actually resulted in a stellar performance and win.

While Young wore his Knicks-oriented shoes, New York blew the doors off the Hawks in a 113-89 victory. Of course, Atlanta was without three usual starters, including Dejounte Murray. Knowing that Young wore the shoes anyway! And he still shot just 9-of-20 from the field (zero makes from three) in a 19-point, six-assist, four-rebound, and four-turnover performance. It’s not a completely awful stat line, but it’s not exactly the performance of a “King of Broadway” in a 24-point loss for his team.

And for someone who enjoys beating the Knicks so much, it’s worth noting Young has actually lost to them more often than he’s enjoyed any victories:

To be fair to Young, he’s become one of the NBA’s best players precisely because of his confidence. But man, this Knicks shoe stunt couldn’t have gone worse for the Hawks’ star while in New York.

Everything we know about the reported beef between Trae Young and Hawks coach Nate McMillan

Trae Young had a strained relationship with his ex-head coach Lloyd Pierce.

Atlanta’s Trae Young missed Friday’s game against the Nuggets, and it was potentially a much bigger deal than people may have initially realized.

One of the goals during training camp for the Hawks was to improve the communication and the connection between Young and head coach Nate McMillan. During the offseason, Young insisted that he had a “great” (and not rocky) relationship with McMillan.

If you’ll recall, Young reportedly had a “strained relationship” with former Hawks coach Lloyd Pierce and wanted him fired. A few months after Pierce was fired, Young appeared to take a shot at his former coach following Team USA’s loss to Australia.

McMillan replaced Pierce less than one year ago and perhaps his main duty as head coach was to properly solve the question of how to use Young.

Based on a recent report from The Athletic, however, it seems that trouble may be brewing once again between Young and his head coach. Here is what we know thus far:

Ranking: The Top 25 players under 25

HoopsHype ranks the Top 25 players under the age of 25 as we approach the halfway point of the 2022-23 NBA season.

It’s hard to remember a time with as much dominant young talent as there is in the NBA today, with a true changing of the guard taking place in recent seasons.

For evidence, just look at the top two players in this very ranking right below, both frontrunners for 2022-23 MVP and both under 25 years old, one 23 and the other just 24.

So we decided, as we have done in other years, to rank the Top 25 players under the age of 25, as voted on by a panel of our writers and editors, an exercise that surely won’t ruffle any feathers.

Below, check out the results for HoopsHype’s Top 25 players under 25 for the 2022-23 NBA season.

Joel Embiid details how he broke up Hawks lob to lead Sixers to win

Philadelphia 76ers star Joel Embiid explains how he broke up the lob of the Atlanta Hawks to lead the team to a win.

PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia 76ers squeaked out a 104-101 win over the Atlanta Hawks at home on Monday as Joel Embiid returned to the lineup. The big fella had 30 points, eight rebounds and seven assists, but his biggest play was on the defensive end.

With the Sixers leading by one with 18.6 seconds left, the Hawks went to their bread and butter on the offensive end. They turned to Trae Young and Clint Capela running the pick-and-roll. They were hoping to get an easy lob out of it.

Young threw the lob to Capela, but Embiid was there for the steal that sealed a Sixers win.

“In that situation, from the start of the play, you could tell he thought we were going to trap him,” explained Embiid. “They were gonna try to set a screen for him to try to get me on him and we were guarding 1 through 5 anyway, so I would have to guard him straight up anyways, but the way I positioned myself, I acted like we were going to trap him and tried to take the ball out of his hands.”

Embiid then went into detail about how he baited Young to throw that pass. He played the lob a bit differently and that allowed Capela to get open, but then Embiid jumped the passing lane to make the play.

“As the best player on the team, you want the last shot and you want to be able to make the last plays to make sure that your team wins,” Embiid added. “In that situation, that’s why he ended up sending whoever I was guarding away and try to go one-on-one and I just tried to play a cat-and-mouse game where I had him thinking that he had a wide-open lob, while at the same time, I knew I was giving that space for a reason.”

Embiid is a student of the game who watches players around the league. On Monday, his basketball studies paid off.

“I watch a lot of games,” he explained. “He’s (Young) not selfish. He can make that type of play if someone is open so I was just trying to bait him and it did work and in some instances, it doesn’t work. It could have been a bad play or a bad read by me, but in that situation, it did work so I was happy.”

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Stephen Silas excited by Houston’s improvement on defense, rebounds

“That was the game,” #Rockets head coach Stephen Silas says of Houston’s late defensive effort in a win over Atlanta. “The extra effort plays, the big time rebounds we got.”

HOUSTON — So many things happened in the Rockets’ 128-122 win over the Atlanta Hawks on Friday night at Toyota Center.

Houston trailed by 16 points late in the third quarter, 90-74, but they outscored Atlanta the rest of the way, 54-32, to secure their fourth win of the season. They ony allowed 18 fourth-quarter points after giving up 104 through three periods.

Atlanta’s All-Star backcourt of Trae Young and Dejounte Murray could not be stopped for much of the game; they torched every Rockets defender that tried.

For the game, they combined for 83 points on 52 shot attempts. But when their team needed them the most in the final period, the superstars folded under pressure with a collective 14 points (seven on made free throws) on 3-for-9 shooting (33.3%) from the field.

That wasn’t enough when compared to the fourth-quarter play of second-year Rockets guard Jalen Green and rookie forward Jabari Smith Jr., whose 17 points pushed Houston over the hump. It also helped that Houston out-rebounded Atlanta by a staggering margin.

“That was the game,” Rockets head coach Stephen Silas said of his team’s defensive effort in the fourth quarter. “The extra effort plays, the big time rebounds we got from KJ (Martin) and Jabari (Smith) jumping over people to grab rebounds. We got tired of them scoring on us. That is a good thing to have when you have guys out there who are like, ‘They are not going to do that anymore.’ That says a lot about our character and our group.”

The last time Houston was victorious in a game in which they trailed by double-digits at the start of the fourth was also against Atlanta on Dec. 13, 2021. They faced a 13-point deficit in that game.

Silas and his staff had to be elated, particularly when looking at the statistics. Houston had 37 second-chance points, whereas Atlanta (11-8) only had two. They also had to smile when they looked over at the rebounding stat line that displayed 59 total rebounds, 22 of which came on the offensive end of the floor.

Four Rockets players scored 20 or more points in the game. Green led the way with 30, while reserve shooting guard Garrison Mathews led all scorers off both benches with 20.

While all those things were critical to Houston winning the game to split the season series with Atlanta, none of it would have been possible if it had not been for a big game played by Martin.

The third-year forward’s imprint on the game was huge, as he scored 21 points and grabbed a career-high 15 rebounds. With veteran Eric Gordon out for rest on the front end of a back-to-back, Martin took his place in the lineup and made his fifth start of the 2022-23 season.

Martin also shut down a vital member of Atlanta’s offense in John Collins, who was very ineffective, finishing with a measly 8 points in 34 minutes. It was somewhat of a revenge game for Martin after the earlier meeting, where Collins had 24 points to lead all scorers in a 117-107 Hawks win. Martin scored 6 points in a losing effort.

Martin, 21, has been very productive early this season, scoring in double digits in 12 of the 18 games he has played. That includes each of the last four, with averages of 13.7 points and 7 rebounds.

Houston (4-14) will have no time to celebrate the win over the Hawks. It will be back in action versus Oklahoma City (8-11) on Saturday night at Toyota Center. Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. Central.

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Here’s how Dejounte Murray and the Hawks’ totally ridiculous scuffle with the Rockets led to a blown double-digit lead

Dejounte Murray clearly hates the 2022 draft class

What if I told you there was a game where Trae Young and Dejounte Murray combined for 83 points in a single game. You’d think it’d be one the Hawks won, right?

Well, if so, you’d be wrong. That actually happened. But they actually lost to the Houston Rockets, 128-122.

It’d be a reasonable assumption to think that they’d have won this game. We rarely see fantastic performances like this that result in losses.The funny thing is, though, the Hawks were actually in position to win. They led by as many as 16 points in the 3rd quarter.

But then, well, they just lost composure. And it was all behind a scuffle that shouldn’t have happened at all.

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