Atlanta Hawks CEO Steve Koonin joined Dukes & Bell for his weekly appearance on the show and talked about Trae Young being snubbed from the All-Star game and is he a victim of his own success?
When asked if he felt Trae Young was disrespected with being left out of all-star game.
“Oh hundred percent, you look at who got in, you look at what he’s done, you look at what he’s done even in his short career where I think he’s seventh already in points and assists combined,” Koonin said. “It’s sad, it’s stunning, there’s not an appeal process, there’s three components, the fans are one, the media’s one, and the coaches are one. Unfortunately when you don’t get the fan vote it’s hard to come back from the other two.”
Steve talked about how Trae is playing a different game this season.
“I think if you look at Trae’s best games this year they weren’t his highest scoring games, you look at the Phoenix game I think he had twenty and twelve. He’s playing a different game even though he’s having similar results, he’s moving the ball, he’s passing, he’s involving more teammates. A big piece of this remember it’s also global voting, Trae’s now the number seven jersey in the world for the NBA, it’s disappointing, it’s a little bit disheartening.”
Koonin said that he hopes this will propel Trae and the Hawks in the second half of the season.
“I’m hoping that he can use this chip to really propel us in the second half of the season but I’m said that he has to use the chip to propel us in the second half of the season because he’s a deserving all-star. If you looked at twitter last night there was a whole lot of blind stats, this player has nineteen and seven this player has twenty-eight and ten, which one’s the all-star? It’s a little bit more than that and I do think that unfortunately that his vote didn’t come in through the popular vote which he won last year.”