Only the Young

Trae Young became the first member of an undesirable club last season.

Aug 12, 2025

Cross-post from Statitudes

Weekend Read: I am cross-posting this from a train to Wolverhampton to see Manchester City's first game of the new Premier League season at Molineux. Among my reading material on the ride to Wolves was this detailed look at Trae Young's 2024-25 season in Atlanta from my pal Justin Kubatko. It's an informative complement to all the recent coverage from Jake Fischer on Trae's future as a Hawk that we published in last Sunday's around-the-league notes. Back to the desk in Dallas soon! -

Marc Stein

Throughout NBA history, 11 distinct players have produced a total of 24 seasons in which they recorded at least 1,600 points and 800 assists. Here’s the full list:

Oscar Robertson, 5
Isiah Thomas, 4
Magic Johnson, 3
Russell Westbrook, 3
Kevin Johnson, 2
Chris Paul, 2
Nate Archibald, 1
Tim Hardaway, 1
James Harden, 1
John Wall, 1
Trae Young, 1

How did those players fare when it comes to making one of the All-NBA teams?

16 were named All-NBA First Team
6 were named All-NBA Second Team
1 was named All-NBA Third Team

That adds up to 23, so obviously there’s an odd man out. Who is it? The title of this post gives it away: it’s Trae Young, who finished the 2024-25 campaign with 1,841 points and a league-leading 880 assists. In fact, he didn’t come close to earning the honor, receiving just three Third Team votes out of the 100 ballots cast.

I should note that the positionless ballot introduced in 2023-24 did not lead to a shortage of guards on last season’s All-NBA teams, as eight members were primarily backcourt players (compared to six during the positional era).

So what held Young back? I’d chalk it up to three main things:

Poor Shooting

Young shot just 41.1% from the floor, a career-low field goal percentage that ranked 110th out of 117 qualified players. It’s also the lowest such figure among the 24 player-seasons mentioned above.

Standard field goal percentage is less meaningful for players like Young who take a lot of 3-point shots, which is why we often look at effective field goal percentage instead. Unfortunately for Young, this doesn’t help him. His adjusted figure of 49.1% was well below the league average of 54.3%. Relatively speaking, Young does slightly worse by this measure, placing 111th in the league.

Turnovers

Young committed a league-leading 355 turnovers, 47 more than his previous single-season high. This is nothing new for Young, who’s led the NBA in errors three of the last four seasons.

Granted, Young has the ball in his hands a lot, so maybe he would look better after taking possessions into account. However, that’s not the case. Among the 62 players with at least 1,000 individual possessions* last season, Young owns the third-highest turnover rate with an average of 19.2 per 100 possessions.

* The formula for individual possessions was developed by Dean Oliver. It takes into account most offensive statistics that can be found in the box score.

Mediocre Team

Young’s Atlanta Hawks finished with a 40-42 record, placing eighth in the Eastern Conference. The Hawks had two chances to qualify for the playoffs via the Play-In Tournament, but fell to the Orlando Magic (120-95) and the Miami Heat (123-114 in overtime).

Going back to the list at the top of this post, only two of those players (other than Young) suited up for a team with a losing record:

Oscar Robertson, 1966-67
Nate Archibald, 1972-73

Robertson’s Cincinnati Royals finished 39-42 but qualified for the playoffs (where they lost in the first round), while Archibald’s Kansas City-Omaha Kings went 36-46 and did not make the postseason. However, Archibald did make history by becoming the first player to lead the NBA in both points and assists in the same season, a feat Young matched in 2021-22 (a season in which he was named All-NBA Third Team, the only time in his career he’s earned All-NBA honors).