Trae Young has spent his professional career within the unenviable anonymity of Atlanta Hawks basketball, known primarily for a high usage rate that doesn’t necessarily equate to team success. Young made the mistake of doing nothing after helping his team reach the conference finals in his third year, which made him a trade piece in his seventh year with the arrival of younger, more cost-effective and basketball-efficient teammates. Plus, he was traded to the Washington Wizards, a team with a much worse past, present, and future than the Hawks. Typically, this is an eight-figure banishment, a way to earn $48 million without the stress of competitive expectations before hitting the free agent market in hopes of landing a well-paying gig in the actual NBA.
However, Young revealed that he was an inspired strategic thinker during his time at Wizards, even though it never officially started. He hasn’t played a single minute for the team since the trade due to a knee injury, but is expected to debut Thursday night at home against Utah, or as we know them, the Mountain Time Zone Washington Wizards. So how was Young able to preview Tankin’ Ten, the most resistant to customers, and create a bit of buzz locally?
easy. All you have to do is get kicked out of the game while wearing civilian clothes. Viral marketing has never been this ingenious.
On Monday, the Wizards found themselves in double-digit hiding, this time at the hands of the Houston Rockets. It was late in the third quarter when Houston’s Tari Eason and Washington’s Jamir Watkins got cold feet with each other and Young walked onto the court and barked about a snipe. He was quickly called for a technical foul by official Jacyn Goble and absorbed a second foul moments later, making Young the rarest of the lot. He is a player who has been kicked out of a game for his team before actually appearing in a game for that team. Hey, if you think it’s that easy, give it a try.
Now, we are not suggesting an artificial method here. Young could have done it early in the first quarter and gone to town before the half was out. Nor are we suggesting that this be done in bad taste. Young may have his own feelings about being tasked with remaking this monument out of inertia, but if he didn’t care, he wouldn’t be so passionate about defending his future teammate.
But the Wizards have been one of the NBA’s most mediocre and most forgotten teams for years, averaging 4,100 empty seats per night. their number. There were 17,352 people in attendance last night, which is 1,500 more than the seasonal average. Those numbers were mainly there to see hometown hero Kevin Durant kick out a shared seat, and it’s hard to imagine a similarly sized crowd for the Jazz, even though this is Washington’s most winnable remaining home game. So there was little opportunity for Young to solidify his bones in his new city, and he took his chances without pulling up his shooting sleeves. Or maybe the opportunity caught him and he was both angry and lucky.
The Wizards have needed a team that can fit into town for a long time. The all-too-brief John Wall-Bradley Beal era ended in misery, injuries and losses, and the long-gone Gilbert Arenassaince feels like a hallucination. In fact, while this year’s Wiz are in another short capalooza, they were aggressive in acquiring names at the trade deadline, securing Young on a cold market and Anthony Davis on a sub-zero market. It may be a misguided hustle, but it allows you to tighten the screws and be particularly far-sighted in a less overt way than the vibe the Wizard usually gives off. There’s a reason the team hasn’t regularly sold out stadiums since the ‘Oughts’ early days, and even attendance figures can be too much of a fudge. In that way, Young is competing in his own way for dwindling entertainment dollars, and credit is due to him for capturing and promoting the moment.
And Young’s exit may have inspired his new playing colleagues. That’s because the Wiz outscored the blatantly superior Rockets 45-33 from that point until the end of the game. Washington is one of the least controversial teams in the league. With two more team skills than Dillon Brooks has managed on his own, the eccentric Young can at least serve to make the Wizards less lukewarm. Let us not get ahead of ourselves or history in making them better. But Young seems to be doing his best to make it look good, which is at least more than can be said for his new team.
