Hawks' Trae Young: ROY Race with Luka Doncic Is 'Closer Than Some People Think'
The 29-50 Atlanta Hawks have long been eliminated from postseason contention, but point guard Trae Young is still fighting for some hardware.
Young landed with the Hawks through a 2018 draft-night trade with the Dallas Mavericks, who received forward Luka Doncic. The pair will be linked for their entire NBA careers, and the comparisons have begun right away as both have made a case for winning the NBA Rookie of the Year Award.
"This is a season-long award," the No. 5 overall pick told Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today. "Early on, everybody was saying [Doncic] was Rookie of the Year and deservedly so. He was playing really well, and I wasn't playing the best. ... In the second half, it's flipped.
"It's starting to sound like it's an early-season award. If that's what people are doing their voting off of, it's going to be tough. If you do a full-season look, it's definitely closer than some people think."
Before the All-Star break, Doncic was averaging 20.7 points compared to Young's 16.9 points per game. Following the All-Star break, Young has hit another gear and boosted his points per game to 25 while Doncic sits at 22.8 points per game.
Before turning 20 on Feb. 28, Doncic was a teenage phenomenon and etched his name in several all-time NBA categories. On Doncic's 20th birthday, ESPN Stats & Information provided context for Doncic's hot start:
"There have been five players to score more points as an NBA teen than Doncic, and it's pretty exclusive company: LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Carmelo Anthony, Kevin Durant and Dwight Howard. They all played significantly more NBA games as teens than Doncic, whose 20.9 points per game ranks behind only James (21.9) and Anthony (21.0) among players with more than three games logged before turning 20."
Young began giving voters reason to reconsider by scoring at least 30 points in four of the first five games following the All-Star break, capped by a career-high 49 points on March 1.
Contrastingly, Doncic has dealt with nagging injuries since All-Star.
The reigning ROTY, Ben Simmons, was firmly in the Doncic camp when asked Monday:
Young responded by scoring a game-high 33 points, dishing 12 assists and grabbing seven rebounds in the Hawks' win over Simmons' Philadelphia 76ers on Wednesday. "Maybe he thinks differently now," Young said after the game to Chris Kirschner of The Athletic.
Utah Jazz guard Donovan Mitchell, the 2017-18 Rookie of the Year runner-up, declared Young rookie of the year after the 20-year-old dropped 32 points, 11 assists and six rebounds on the Sixers March 23.
Los Angeles Lakers forward Kyle Kuzma seconded, and Detroit Pistons forward Blake Griffin chimed in with "third" to Mitchell.
The voters' opinions, though, are the only ones that matter.
Overall this season, Doncic has averaged 21.2 points, 7.7 rebounds and 5.9 assists across 71 games with Young averaging 19 points, 8.1 assists and 3.7 rebounds across 79 games.
