Trae Young has been the cornerstone of the Atlanta Hawks franchise ever since tapping his shoulder on draft night back in 2018. In the six seasons since, he’s brought an exciting brand of fast-paced basketball and fearless clutch moments with him.
In more recent years, Trae Young has been lending his voice to the podcast circuit to tell his stories and share perspectives from his life as a star basketball player. Young even hosts his own podcast, From the Point, which offers a further glimpse into his lifestyle and mentality.
SB Nation has partnered with former NBA players Andre Iguodala and Evan Turner — the latter of which played for the Hawks alongside Young in 2019-20 in his final NBA season — to bring the Point Forward podcast. In a recent edition of the podcast, found here, Young sat down with that duo to talk prior to the 2022-23 season.
On facing criticism in hias basketball journey, Young had this to say:
[The criticism] started for me in college. It’s crazy. They were showing my stats on other teams that were playing during [other] games. I wasn’t even playing in that game. Just a score check. But then we started going to a downward part of the end of the [Oklahoma] season. And a lot of people started criticizing my game. At one point, I was going to be number one [in the draft]. We were number three in the country, and then we started losing. I started facing scrutiny then and a lot of backlash because I was on ESPN every day. I was talked about every day.
Later, about playing with guard Dejounte Murray (interview recorded prior to the 2023-24 season):
He’s been such a great teammate for me so far. Obviously, we knew there was going to be some struggles and times that we would have to go through. I think we didn’t finish as we wanted to [as a 7-seed in 2022-23]. But for us, both being PGs, having the ball in our hands, with our [old] teams, it’s something we had to go through and a growing period. But now since this summer, there are a lot of things that we’ve been talking. A lot of new things that are going to be added next season, and I’m just looking forward to it.
Young touches on a number of other subjects in the podcast episode, including:
- His offseason training program out in California
- Growing up around Lubbock, Texas where father Rayford played basketball at Texas Tech and in Portugal
- Meeting NBA players as a kid, taking pictures with them
- Media criticism and misrepresentations
- Dream guests for From the Point
- Team USA snub
Give this most recent episode a listen.
Point Forward (with Andre Iguodala & Evan Turner)