This article will probably be read by about ten people max, but it needs to be done.
For some reason, no one cares about the young duo of Trae Young and John Collins. Actually, I don't know why I said for some reason; the reasons are pretty clear.
One reason is that there is a 6-foot-7 European 19-year-old taking over the NBA one step back at a time, who the Hawks happened to trade in order to obtain Trae Young. That 19-year-old, Luka Doncic, is so good he pushed the Mavericks to trade their entire starting-5 just to properly build around his playstyle, and no one questioned if it was a rush to judgement. It's that generational playstyle that manages to outshine even the brightest of Trae Young performances on a nightly basis, placing the Hawks' cornerstone as a national afterthought.
The irrelevance of John Collins is a little harder to gauge, seeing as how the 21-year-old perfectly fits the mold of the type of power forward NBA GM's drool over: athletic, nice shooting touch and efficient. However, it's hard to be amazed by a talented piece when it's regularly surrounded by the likes of Kevin Huerter and Dewayne Dedmon. It's hard to enjoy a great Lil Uzi feature when you have Shabazz terrorizing your ear for three minutes.
Despite Trae Young being overshadowed by Luka-mania and John Collins' hype falling victim to tanking, the Atlanta Hawks have two young players that are franchise cornerstones in their respective positions.
Trae Young
There's something sad about peaking early. Watching Julian Newman dominate high school defenses at 10-years-old becomes sad when you see those same moves from him at 18-years-old. The high school athlete that ran the school graduates and becomes just another freshman on a college campus, in a matter of months.
In a matter of months, Trae Young went from having his own ESPN ticker graphic to only being mentioned as a generational draft mistake.
A few terrible Summer League performances led many(myself included) to label Young as a long-term project, but the 20-year-old has shown he can make an impact sooner rather than later.
The Oklahoma product is averaging 17 points and 7 assists in less than 30 minutes of play, posing the question: What could Trae Young do with the minutes a star player normally garners? Per 36 minutes, Young's averages jump to a projected 20 points and 9 assists.
Standing at just 6-foot-1, the 175-pound point guard will probably never be someone opponents fear when he's driving to the basket, but the rookie has proved throughout the season that he can hold his own at the rim, converting on 56 percent of his shots within three feet. A series of hesitations and surprisingly shifty moves paired with the respect his jumper garners allows Young to get to the rim almost at will. Once Young gets to the rim, he turns to the undersized guard layup package perfected by Steph Curry-- a collection of floaters, pass fakes and reverses.
Speaking of Steph Curry, I think the main thing holding Trae Young back is the fact that he can't shine in a system curated to his skills like Steve Kerr has created for Golden State; instead Young is subjected to being the only capable playmaker on the floor, and it's holding back his potential.
With Young being the only capable shot creator the Hawks have, the rookie is only scoring off assists 24 percent of the time inside the arc and only 39 percent of the time from deep. For comparison, Steph Curry is assisted on 45 percent of his two-point field goals and 69 percent of his three-point field goals, and Devin Booker, fellow tanking franchise face lacking little backcourt help, is assisted on 58 percent of his triples.
The lone positive of the Hawks' glorified high school offense is that the best part of Trae Young's game gets put on display and tested routinely. Young is currently averaging 7.7 assists a night, placing him 11th in the entire NBA and near some of the game's upper echelon of passers. At 37 percent, Young has an assist percentage(an estimate of the percentage of teammate field goals a player assisted while he was on the floor) higher than LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Ben Simmons.
The player benefiting the most from the passing skills of Trae Young is none other than:
John Collins
John Collins is three years away from getting a nine-figure contract, and barely anyone brings his name up.
Collins isn't hitting dream shakes or dominating Eastern Conference bigs like Joel Embiid, but he plays the role of the modern big perfectly. Strong dives and finishes down low paired with the ability to consistently drain threes makes the Wake Forest product the perfect running mate for a facilitator like Trae Young. He has the athleticism to be in this year's dunk contest and the shooting touch to have games like this:
Attempting just slightly over 10 field goals a night, it's clear that Collins knows the limitations of his game. If it's not a dunk or an open three, pass it up. This smart thinking has the second-year big man with a higher PER(21.9) than All-Stars Blake Griffin, Bradley Beal, Ben Simmons, Kemba Walker and Russell Westbrook.
A person could view Collins' inability to get his own shot as a negative, but I see it as a natural deterrent to a battle of superiority. The 21-year-old not being able to actively call his own number places him as the clear third option in the Hawks franchise cornerstones-- a spot perfectly suited for him.
However, there is one glaring negative in the game of John Collins, and it's evident nightly on the defensive end.
At 6-foot-10 with the athleticism he possesses, it's hard to imagine a scenario where Collins can't luck his way into getting at least one block every other game; yet, somehow that seems to be the case, as Collins is averaging 0.4 blocks per game. James Harden has more than double the amount of blocks as John Collins(41 to 17).
The defensive numbers of Collins is eerily similar to the production of Blake Griffin, another freakishly athletic big with a similar skillset. Collins lacks the playmaking ability of Griffin but shares enough characteristics to have Hawks' fans excited for a player with All-Star potential.
In Trae Young, the Hawks have a legitimate franchise cornerstone to build around, and the quicker their front office builds, the quicker the world will start to take notice of one of the game's brightest young set of stars.