Atlanta Hawks point guard Trae Young was forced out of his team’s 117-112 win over the Brooklyn Nets on Wednesday due to a right knee sprain.
The team is currently waiting for swelling to subside in order to perform additional testing, however the belief is that Young’s ACL is still in tact, and that a worst case scenario has been avoided.
“The most important thing is it is not his ACL,” head coach Quin Snyder said after the game. “He’s going to get an MRI tonight or tomorrow, and make a determination from there. Not sure how long or what respect, but something he’s hopefully going to be back from whenever possible.”
”He didn’t want to come out of the game,” Snyder continued. “He’s such a competitor. He takes a lot of pride in being available … You saw it tonight, too. He tried to stay in there. He told me, ‘Just give me a couple minutes,’ and I told him, ‘If I don’t like what I see, I’m taking you out.'”
The star guard appeared to tweak his knee when teammate Mouhamed Gueye was pushed into him by Brooklyn’s Noah Clowney. Young remained on the floor before eventually getting to his feet and jogging off gingerly. The 27 year old attempted to remain in the contest before Snyder pulled him 17 seconds later.
Across 5 games, Young is averaging 17.8pts/7.8ast/2reb/0.8stl per contest. Despite his strong play at the point, Atlanta has been slow out of the gates, sporting a 2-3 record to date. In his absence, Nickeil Alexander-Walker is expected to take care of primary ball handling duties, however a prolonged recovery timeline could spell trouble for Atlanta who lean heavily on Young’s play making abilities to generate offence.
The Hawks will have an NBA Cup group stage contest vs. Indiana on Friday night, before travelling to Cleveland, then hosting the Magic, Raptors, and Lakers. A more definitive timeline for Young’s recovery will likely be provided on Friday during the team’s media availability session.
Photo: Erik Drost. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.