Amid all the discourse about the shocking Luka Dončić-Anthony Davis blockbuster, perhaps the funniest is the subset of Atlanta Hawks fans that claim that Atlanta has emerged victorious in the draft day trade that swapped Dončić with Trae Young on draft night in 2018, especially given that Young has been the subject of trade rumors for years.
On Wednesday night, Young will face a different recently-traded point guard, the San Antonio Spurs’ De’Aaron Fox, who will make his debut as Victor Wembanyama’s running mate tonight at 7 p.m. ET. Young was one of the most egregious All-Star snubs this season, averaging 23.0 points and a league-leading 11.5 assists per game, while Fox has averaged 25.0 points and 6.1 assists per game.
It’s a matchup between two of the least in-form teams in the league; over the last 10 games, the Spurs have the league’s seventh-worst net rating and the Hawks the fifth-worst.
On DraftKings Sportsbook, Atlanta is a 4.5-point underdog and the point total is set to 243. Below, I’ve highlighted my favorite prop bet centered around Ice Trae.
Best Trae Young Prop Bets on DraftKings Sportsbook
Trae Young Most Points + Rebounds + Assists (+170)
Young’s main competitors are Fox and Wembanyama, since none of his teammates average within even 13 P/R/A of him, and it should be close. I don’t think the two San Antonio stars will diminish each other’s ceiling too much, as their games are perfectly complementary. But their chemistry might take some time to build and they might see a small dip in production for the first few games while they figure out how to maximize each other’s strengths. Meanwhile, Young has scored 34 points in two consecutive games, hitting a game-winning shot against the Detroit Pistons on Monday.
The Spurs have been a disaster over the last ten games, especially on the defensive end. Across that span, they’ve conceded the second-most points, sixth-most rebounds, and third-most assists per game. Fox — last season’s steals champion — should help somewhat in that regard, but he and Wembanyama, the likely Defensive Player of the Year, can’t slow down Young alone. Meanwhile, the Hawks have improved somewhat on defense since elevating Onyeka Okongwu to the starting lineup. They’ve still allowed the sixth-most points, eighth-most rebounds, and 12th-most assists per game, but the point and assist figures are better than their season-long marks. Barring a massive rebounding performance by Wembanyama against the six-foot-eight Okongwu, Atlanta’s defense is good enough that Young should lead in P/R/A.
Trae Young O4.5 Turnovers (+105)
Upgrading from Chris Paul to Fox should increase San Antonio’s ceiling in getting steals. Although Paul is averaging 1.3 steals per game in just under 30 minutes of playing time — an extremely impressive figure for a 39-year-old in his 20th season — Fox averages 3.3 deflections per game, far ahead of Paul’s 2.3. Overall, the Spurs have forced just 13.1 turnovers per game — the fifth-fewest in the league — with Paul as the starting point guard, but that should improve with Fox, whose Sacramento Kings forced 14.6 turnovers per game, a league-average figure. Recently, rookie guard Stephon Castle has put together the best five-game stretch of his career, having recorded at least one steal in four of those five games.
In five games since Johnson went down for good, Young has averaged 8.7 minutes of possession per game, the third-most in the league, and he has been pretty disastrous as a ball-handler, coughing it up a ghastly 6.2 times per contest, including a two-turnover performance in a blowout loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers on January 30. He and Detroit Pistons point guard Cade Cunningham are the only two players with multiple 10-turnover games this season.
