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Something is rotten in Atlanta—and it might just be Trae Young.
“It's no secret there's a serious disconnect between Young, the team's star player, and many — though some say nearly all — of his teammates,” CBS Sports' Ben Reiter wrote in a recent article. “He is not beloved, sources say, and there's a strong view that Young fails to lead, to understand or care to understand what is required of him, and that as a result the team will never achieve what it should until that reality is fixed.”
What's more, the organizational vibes may have irreparably soured, with sources characterizing them to Reiter as “broken,” “ugly” and “total s**t.”
While Young is once again posting some of the gaudiest stat lines of any point guard in the NBA, the Atlanta Hawks have failed to meet lofty preseason expectations. The offseason addition of All-Star guard Dejounte Murray was supposed to catapault the Hawks towards the league's upper-middle class, but the Hawks are slouching towards the Play-In Tournament for the second straight season after their rousing Eastern Conference Finals run in 2021.
Although the 31-31 Hawks haven't been that bad, they've sneakily morphed into the NBA's topsy-turviest team; they've already fired their general manager Travis Schlenk and head coach Nate McMillan this season. The Athletic has previously reported that Nick Ressler, the 27 year-old son of team owner Tony Ressler, has amassed considerable clout within the organization as the boy-king of the front office.
Still, not all is lost. Headlined by Trae Young, the roster has considerable talent—the starting lineup of Young, Murray, De'Andre Hunter, John Collins and Clint Capela has outscored opponents by 11.2 points per 100 possessions, the fifth-best mark of any high-usage lineup, according to Cleaning the Glass.
Similarly, the recent hire of new head coach Quin Snyder represents a major step towards salvaging what's quickly becoming a lost season. Beyond his bona fides as an expert tactician, Snyder has garnered a reputation as a locker-room unifier who could deftly navigate the NBA's complicated workplace politics.
