I'm finally warming up to Ice

A treatise on the new Trae

Welcome back, everyone! The holiday break ran a little long for me this year, but I’m excited to return to talking basketball with you.

While most people’s New Year began with resolutions, for me, as I look to start 2025 bright and free, I must begin with a somewhat sheepish confession. I felt it prudent to unburden this growing weight that has centered itself within me.

But first, let me thank you for providing me with a space to shed myself of this secret, unburdened by the preventative fears of judgment. Of course, I do still have a comment section, so I may be speaking too soon.

So, here goes… I think I might like Trae Young.

Whoo! There. I said it. I’m finally free and clear from the weight of that secret. (Somewhere, Jarrett L. Spence is smiling.)

I know, I know. You’re wondering: how can an efficiency wonk who repeatedly maligns bad shot diets and poor defensive effort come to find themselves crushing on the one player who, in so many ways, has been the singular embodiment of everything they despise?

Simple. Trae has changed—in ways both big and small—that have shifted his impact from a “me-first” model to a “let’s all eat” one.

While many of these changes are not particularly innovative—simply adjustments in terms of effort and decision-making that we’ve all been clamoring for—the fact that Trae has finally made them has transformed a player who, in many ways, is still the same low-efficiency hot dog he’s always been into someone who now positively impacts winning more than at any other sustained period in his career. (And yes, I know Atlanta is just 19-19 with a negative net rating, but that’s a reflection of a much tougher Eastern Conference.)

First, let’s take a look at Trae’s stats far for the season:

Now, let’s talk about the three areas of focus that have shifted for Trae and why they are such positive elements to this new and improved version of the player.

Scoring

At 22.5 points per game, Trae’s scoring is down 3.2 points this season from last season and has actually been in decline year-over-year since he averaged 28.4 per game in ’22. Yet, that’s not a bad thing.

There are two primary components that contribute to Trae’s drop in scoring, and the interplay of both has led to a far less aggressively self-serving style of play for the Hawks' seven-year guard:

Poor Shooting — Trae Young’s shooting prowess has always been a polarizing conversation. While his percentages have never been particularly impressive, his ability to hit from nearly anywhere inside half-court, along with how he has generated points at the line, left many feeling that the juice—a career 25.3 PPG on 43.4% from the floor and 35.3% from distance—was more than worth the squeeze. However, this season’s Trae makes even the most adamant fans have a hard time arguing against the reality that he is simply not shooting the ball well.

Trae’s 40.1% from the floor this season is the worst mark of his career and trails only James Harden (38.9%) for the lowest among the 43 players averaging at least 20 points per game (minimum 20 games played). In addition, his 33.9% from three is the third-lowest among the 25 players attempting at least eight threes per game—trailing only Jalen Green and Tyrese Maxey, both at 33.6%. To make matters worse in terms of perimeter shooting percentages, Trae is shooting that low despite his 61.5% at the rim being the second-best of his career.

Trae, seen here trying to warm himself up from his frigid shooting for most of this season.

And while 33.9% from three-point range isn’t the stuff that gets slow white guys from Duke into the league, it’s reasonable enough for Trae. The place that Young has really struggled this season versus years past is in the midrange, where, per Cleaning the Glass, he is shooting a career-worst 41%. Gone is the player who was killing people with long runners—a large part of that surely has to do with the fact that defenders are not getting taken advantage of by Trae’s foul-baiting tactics nearly as often now that officials have changed their approach. Young’s fouls drawn in the midrange dropped from 103 in the ’23 season to 61 last season, and his free throw attempts (7.0) are the lowest since his rookie season. The more lenient whistle has allowed defenders to close space and play Young more physically in that intermediate range.

Newfound Faith — One of my favorite stats while researching this is one of the most simple, yet sexy: Trae’s 16.9 field goal attempts per game this season are the fewest since his first year in the league. Meaning, that though Trae is mired in a tough than usual shooting season, he isn’t forcing things by doubling-down on bad volume. That’s because, after several failed attempts, Hawks General Manager Landry Fields seems to have finally found the right balance of complementary pieces for Trae’s style of play.

Equipped with a stacked arsenal of length and perimeter shooting and a nice smattering of rim-running bigs, the Hawks have players that Trae clearly trusts in ways we just haven’t seen before. And nowhere is that more reflective than in Trae’s shot diet.

While he will never free himself from the need to take the occasional “what the f—k?” three, you can see that Trae is forcing fewer bad shots this year. That fact is reflected in Trae taking his lowest number of attempts with a defender four feet or less (the designation for “Tight/Very Tight” per NBA Stats) away from him in his career.

And a major part of this is that Trae is finally making himself a genuine threat as an off-ball shooter!

This season, Young is averaging his highest percentage of catch-and-shoot attempts in his career at 13.3%, and his 35% assisted rate—which tracks how often a player is assisted on for their made shots—is also the best of his career, and a serious jump from 21% just two seasons ago.

Trae trusting his teammates to be playmakers by finally facilitating space with his own off-ball movement isn’t just a smart play because he has dynamic playmakers in Dyson Daniels and Jalen Johnson; it’s smart because he is imbuing confidence in his young wards to now make the plays that Trae used to hoard—this is a large part of why Johnson has grown into an All-Star caliber player this season.

Fun side stat: 48.9% of all Trae’s passes received are from Johnson (32.6%) and Daniels (16.3%).

Passing

What Trae is doing as a distributor this season has been nothing short of awesome. Any sane mind—and mine has been questioned enough—could recognize the dynamic passing abilities of Trae Young in the past. But while Ice Trae may have worked his way into the hearts of the younger generation of fans via highlight-reel passes that are surely pretty, if woefully overrated, stodgy fans like myself took umbrage with some of Trae’s decision-making and general lack of concern for turnovers and the flow of the game. While the turnovers—at 4.3 per game (tied with Cade for the second-most in the league and trailing only James Harden at 4.7)—are an ever-present concern, the style of playmaking and the understanding of game rhythms are completely different for Trae this year.

For too long, Trae has done what I like to call "Rondo-ing the assist," where he hijacks an entire possession to try to cajole a teammate into position for a pass that didn’t feel in the flow but rather as a forced moment.

This season, however, Trae has been far more willing to get off the ball, reset, and go into his actions based on reading the defense rather than trying to force his offensive narrative upon it. Trae’s 26.7% usage rate is the lowest of his career, while his 64.7 passes per game are 9.1 more passes than his previous career high (55.6 in ’24). Trae’s time of possession—while still too high for my taste at 8.2 seconds—is also the second-lowest number since his rookie season.

And perhaps the most erotic stat in this orgy of numbers: Trae’s average seconds per touch at 5.3 is the lowest of his career and the first time since his rookie season that he has been outside the top three players in the league in this category.

Most guards of Trae’s ilk forfeit their assist numbers when they become more deferential, but in Trae’s case, he has finally figured out that in Quinn Snyder’s offense, if you allow yourself to become part of the flow and movement—particularly when you are as talented and draw as much attention as Trae does—you will actually have far better passing opportunities than you do when smothering movement by dribbling the air out of the ball.

All of this stylistic and philosophical change in Trae’s attack has yielded some gaudy passing numbers this season:

• There have only been eleven 20/20 games this season, with just three of those being of the 20-assist, 20-point variety—all three belonging to Trae.

• Through 36 games played, Trae already has 15 games with 15-plus assists. Tyrese Haliburton, who led the NBA in assists per game last season, only had 11 such games over his 69 appearances.

• And speaking of assist leaders, before Jokic dropped 15 assists of his own last night (Young’s Hawks did not play), Trae’s 12.1 assists per game lead Nikola Jokic (9.7) in second by 2.4 assists, which would be the largest margin between first and second since Steve Nash (11.5) led Brevin Knight (9.0) in the ’05 season.

• Young is also on pace to become the first player to average 12-plus assists per game in a season since John Stockton dished out 12.3 in the ’95 season.

Dudes were dropping dimes in ‘89

Defense

Let me start by saying that I feel fairly certain I will die on the hill that Trae Young is a very bad defender. BUT, having seen Trae in person at the NBA Cup semifinals, he is a player finally giving enough effort on that end to now present himself as at least some resistance. We can argue about the level of resistance—he’s more rickety fence than Great Wall—but Trae is no longer the same woeful turnstile I had come to know and loathe. That improved effort isn’t just important for his teammates to see, considering the amount of defensive work that has been necessary in the past to compensate for Trae’s lack of it, but it has also paid substantive dividends, with Trae’s 1.3 steals per game this season being tied with last season for the most of his career. That’s no accident. Over the last two seasons, Young has worked much harder to stay engaged in plays.

A very recent version of Trae would have given the ole on this drive

Watching Trae, head on a swivel and anticipating, well that is some of the sexiest stuff you’ll find on the internet that doesn’t require a credit card for age verification.

With his stature and offensive workload, Trae will always be a liability, but where team defense is concerned, a little "give-a-shit" goes a long way.

Most important, though, is how this Hawks team is playing. Watching Atlanta this season has been the most joyful the team has looked as a unit since Trae arrived. The body language doctor sees far fewer scowls—save for the occasional disapproving glare from Sally Jesse Raphael on the sidelines when Trae devolves and takes a bad early shot—and visible frustration from teammates feeling they are just bit actors in the Trae Show. This Hawks team seems to genuinely enjoy playing with Trae and he with them. Quotes like this one, from the excellent Lauren Williams of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, typify just how different the vibes are from Trae and why this group seems to play with so much more joy than prior Hawks teams:

“It’s just kind of, like, what I’ve said,” Young said. “I know it’s going to fall. My percentages aren’t the way they’ve been, but I’m taking different types of shots, too. I’m obviously getting guys involved, and that’s my main priority, and obviously, the defense is the first priority.”

It’s not that before this season Trae Young didn’t care about winning; it’s that I think he didn’t care enough about winning to make the sacrifices to his game that were necessary to do it consistently. This Hawks team’s record may not reflect that change as much as you’d expect, but if you watch them play, you know we are finally seeing a thankfully different version of Trae.