For all of the talent that Trae Young possesses, his relatively brief tenure with the Atlanta Hawks has hit marvelous highs and dramatic lows.
On the high end, an Eastern Conference Finals appearance in the 2021 NBA Playoffs, which was just his third season with the team. On the low end, the chaos and confusion surrounding the firings of Lloyd Pierce and Nate McMillan, both of whom were fired by the Hawks after they stopped meeting eye-to-eye with Young.
The consequence of which not only led to Atlanta reportedly feeling the need to monitor Young's behavior this offseason, but the 24-year-old being labeled as a ācoach killer' as well.
Addressing that reputation on his podcast, From The Point by Trae Young, Young says that ācertain coaches just fit certain teamsā¦ it doesn't make them bad or good.ā
āFor me, I haven't had very many coachesā¦,ā he continues. āComing into the league, I had a coach, Lloyd [Pierce]. Me and Lloyd had such a good relationship, but there was a lot of rocky roads. I think the reason me and Lloyd really couldn't see eye-to-eye on certain things is because he wants to win just as bad as I did, but the team we had wasn't built to win at that time.ā
āI feel like he was brought in to be a development coach,ā Young says of Pierce, āand I was trying to winā¦ And those two things just don't work well with each otherā¦ā
āI was playing hard, but I just feel like we didn't see eye-to-eye, and I just feel like he didn't believe in me as much as much as the organization did at times, and we kind of just bumped heads. And to be honest, I have so much love for himā¦ā