Let’s start with this: whatever Trae Young ends up being in the NBA, it’s probably not going to have much to do with his first two Summer League games. It’s always dangerous to project off Summer League, much less off of two games.
Having said that, the Hawks would probably prefer if Young had a better showing through two games. As it stands, he’s just 9-36 from the floor, and just 2-16 from three. For a player that faced growing questions as to his effectiveness down the stretch of Oklahoma’s season, it’s not the kind of statement Young was hoping to make, and it didn’t help matters that during his first game, he attempted multiple deep, early-clock threes that were nowhere close to going in.
He ended up with 16 points on 20 shots, and that’s not really ideal. Young also had just three assists to offset three turnovers, and finished a team worst -17, not that +/- is a real solid stat for Summer League action.
Tonight, Young was much more dialed back on the Steph Curry routine, perhaps realizing it was much closer to LaMelo Ball, taking just five threes, connecting on one. He went 5-16 from the floor and finished with 12 points, and generally looked like, well, a guy out there.
That’s not uncommon for rookies in their first professional games, of course, Summer League or not, and there’s every chance that Young goes off for multiple games in a row before the summer is over. It’s still something to watch, though, because a rookie PG launching no-pass, early-clock bombs has to make a decent number of them or it becomes silly very quickly.
