After the Hawks lost to the Heat in the play-in tournament, ending a 2024-25 season filled with injuries, the focus has once again turned to the future of Trae Young. From an objective point of view,

Trae Young pushed the Atlanta Hawks to overtime, but not into the playoffs, in a Friday night play-in tournament loss to the Miami Heat. Young led the Hawks' late comeback before the Heat pulled ahead in extra time to claim a 123-114 win and the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.

Trae Young scores a game-high 28 points before being ejected with less than 5 minutes left in Tuesday’s game. Atlanta star guard Trae Young threw a hard pass and showed off a little fancy ballhandling. Ordinarily, those are good things. Doing it against referees was frowned upon, however — and the NBA said he was “making a mockery of the game.”