KP trade was fine even in hindsight. Got off a bad contract and got an expiring deal in exchange. building around Trae isn’t theoretical physics. He needs a really good drop big. The last good year of Clint Capela was 2021 and they went to ECF. Then Clint fell off and so did the Hawks.

Trae was averaging 29 pts, 10 assts and 2.5 tos on 52/54/88 shooting splits in three full games back before the Knicks game. The Hawks wins before Trae came back were against bad teams and the losing started before he came back. The Hawks have one 6’8 center and can’t rebound or protect the rim.

Exactly!

Trae in his last three full games back…29 points and 10 assists per game against 2.3 turnovers. 52/54/88 shooting splits on high 3 point volume.

Blaming everything on Trae Young is lazy beyond belief. Get him a damn rim protector and the Hawks are perfectly fine. Without one, Trae/No Trae the Hawks have no chance at winning.

Trae can’t do anything about his size and two of the three guys that were supposed to vault the team to contention (KP and Kennard) have been complete non-factors. Also, Trae has played basically 3 AND A HALF GAMES since coming back from injury with a neutral +/-.

With Porzingis not playing the Hawks have ZERO rim protection and that’s really bad under normal circumstances in the NBA, but it’s catastrophic when Trae plays. And the Hawks haven’t had good rim protection since the ECF run, which is why they’ve stayed in the play-in no matter what Trae does.

The Hawks were getting cooked in this game whether Trae was in the action or not, and they were getting consistently cooked even when he wasn’t on the court… explain that.

Trae isn’t a good defender, but one player is not responsible for an entire team being atrocious defensively. The problems are bigger than Trae.