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Atlanta Hawks point guard Trae Young has always had somewhat of an outsized personality dating back to his days as an Oklahoma Sooner. Young's confidence at times has helped grow his popularity and at other times made him some enemies amongst his peers in the league, but recently, the Hawks guard may have fired off his hottest take yet when describing a potential scenario about himself.
The moment occurred during Young's appearance on the Million Dollars Worth of Game podcast, where the topic of how height factors into NBA success came up, via Kurt Helin of NBC Sports.
“I hate when I see guys that are tall, and that’s all. You know what I’m saying? They’re just tall, and that’s it. They can finish, they can do some stuff, but if I was 6'8″, I feel like I would be the best player to ever play this game just because of my mentality and the smartness I have on this game,” said Young.
Young then acknowledged the shortcomings that are a natural product of his height.
“I feel like there’s a lot I can bring, but there are a lot of deficiencies because I’m 6'1″, 6'2″. It’s tough, and I’m playing in a big man’s game, you know what I’m saying? But I make it work,” said Young.
The most glaring weakness that is a byproduct of Young's (by NBA standards) short stature is his defense, which showed improvement in 2023-24 but is still a definite weak spot as talented as he is on the opposite end of the floor.
The Hawks restructured their roster this offseason to better accommodate Young's skillset, replacing Dejounte Murray with a much better defender in Dyson Daniels and also drafted a potential three and D archetype player in Zaccharie Risacher with the number one overall pick.
Whether that will be enough to lift the Hawks out of the cycle of mediocrity they've been stuck in for the last three years remains to be seen.
