The Atlanta Hawks ended the 2021 season as one of the best stories in an inspiring campaign.
During the offseason, Atlanta utilized its cap space on savvy veterans — Bogdan Bogdanovic, Danilo Gallinari and others — who could immediately help Trae Young take the team to the next level.
However, injuries ravaged the early stages of Atlanta’s season and, even when healthy, the Hawks didn’t resemble a playoff-caliber team.
Then, Atlanta brought in Nate McMillan as the head coach, and the Hawks began to take flight.
By the end of the regular season, Atlanta had risen to the fifth seed in the Eastern Conference and was a sleeper team to make a deep playoff run.
Led by Young, the Hawks did just that. Atlanta defeated the fourth-seeded New York Knicks and the top-seeded Philadelphia 76ers to reach the Eastern Conference finals as Kevin Huerter and John Collins developed their games on the big stage.
Even though Young’s postseason ended on an accidental ankle injury, he had one of the greatest playoff runs anyone has had in the league.
In 16 games, Young averaged 28.8 points and 9.5 assists, slotting himself alongside LeBron James in this playoff stat, via StatMuse:
Players in NBA history to average 28+ PPG and 9+ APG in a single playoff run (min 15 games):
— LeBron James in 2018
— Trae Young in his first playoffs pic.twitter.com/vxHikeUGec— StatMuse (@statmuse) July 4, 2021
James led the Cleveland Cavaliers to the NBA Finals in 2018, but the Golden State Warriors swept Cleveland.
Despite the result, James had an incredible run without Kyrie Irving in the picture.
In the 2018 playoffs, James led all players in points, points per game, assists, field goals, free throws, minutes played and player efficiency rating to cite a few categories as he averaged 34 points, 9.1 rebounds and 9.0 assists over 22 games.
Though James and Young had unfortunate conclusions to those seasons, it speaks to their brilliance on the big stage. Young, 22, is only beginning his story in the league.
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