Trae Young injury: Atlanta Hawks star out for at least 4 weeks following finger surgery

Trae Young injury: Atlanta Hawks star out for at least 4 weeks following finger surgery

On today’s emergency podcast Trey young is going to be out for at least four weeks as a result of a finger injury we’ll get into all of what sort of led to this how the Fallout could affect the Hawks the details and much more and all of that is on the

Way you are locked on Hawks your daily Atlanta Hawks podcast part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day Hello friends welcome to episode 1660 of the lon Hawks podcast I am your host Brad Roland coming to you on a Sunday evening for an emergency podcast not

Scheduled I will have a podcast after this one the Hawks take on the Orlando Magic just very shortly after this but it was a big enough news event that I’m going to dive in now and give you an emergency podcast before tip off hopefully it’ll be available as soon as

Possible on YouTube especially we’re still waiting on the audio only feeds to upgrade and be replaced and they’ll be up by Monday but anyway all that to deci side if you’re a new listener welcome aboard if you’re a recording listener thank you for being here and please subscribe to

This podcast anywhere you get your podcasts places like apple Spotify Amazon music YouTube Etc but the news of the day is Trey young is G be out for quite some time with a left pinky finger injury we over the podcast talking about kind of the specifics on the injury and

At the end of the podcast I’ll sort of answer your questions about kind of how things might unfold from here the schedule draft ations U the Hawks the tanking question I keep getting quite some time now and uh we’ll get into all of that on hopefully what it’s going to

Be a whirlwind podcast and obviously big news on this Sunday so Trey suffered the left finger injury during Friday’s loss to Toronto I noted that on the postgame podcast episode 1569 that you can listen to on the same podcast feed also on Twitter it was covered on the TV

Broadcast extensively as well so it wasn’t wasn’t like this was coming out of nowhere this is definitely a known injury it it was seen with his fingers taped together in the second half of the game on Friday then the Hawks initially listed Trey as questionable on Saturday evening for Sunday’s game about two

Hours later though the Hawks downgraded him to out which is not usually what the Hawks would do usually they don’t update the injury report on the same day before unless it’s sort of an addition um a downgrade is uh it’s not unprecedent but certainly is rare So my antenna was up

In a big way some alarm Bells there from me I did some digging on the potential of the broken finger etc etc but this particular diagnosis that broke on Sunday was not the one that I was thinking by any means and I’m not an injury expert I’ll say that right now

But Trey had an MRI and it showed quote a tear of the radial collateral ligament which is the RCL in the fifth finger which is the picky finger of his left hand end quote he’s actually going to have surgery on this finger to repair that ligament on Tuesday at the hospital

For special surgery up in New York and the timeline is interesting here so re-evaluation is going to be approximately four weeks from now again I I want to stress and I say it all the time but I think it’s very very important to kind of stress on this particular uh instance reevaluation is

Not the same thing as return so if you see a headline that says tr’s going be out for four weeks that’s not necessarily true he is going to be re-evaluated in four weeks that would be about March 24th as I’m recording this podcast on Sunday February 25th if you

Include the Orlando game later tonight that’s 14 games that he would miss if it was exactly four weeks and again I doubt that it would be exactly four weeks but usually not always but usually a player is not coming back exactly at the four-week Mark when he when he is

Evaluated in four weeks so keep that in mind I would say just casually I would sort of refer to this as at least four weeks um but reevaluation crucially does not mean return at this point in time so as for the timeline itself moving forward uh first and foremost everyone’s

Going to be guessing here even on the inside but espe especially on the outside the Hawks are almost never going to give you like the return timeline in general organizationally they give you the reevaluation timeline for anything longer than a day or two um they’re going to give you that rather than

Projecting a return um at least for public consumption so part of that is that there’s flexibility there it doesn’t really nail them down but it also is part of it because you never know exactly what a player is going to be returning and they’re kind of at

Least they determined it seems like that they’re better off being a little bit vague on this than being wrong on a stated return timeline but anyway Jeff STS who is a very noted injury expert he runs the blog in Street close um talked about how this is kind of a very

Uncommon injury um he said that the RCL injury to that sh is having here is quote functionally limiting and how it made more sense in his mind to go ahead and act right now rather than actually put it off till the offseason this is

Not a reporting by me this is a guess at this point but because it’s this non-shooting hand maybe there was a chance of it was like the NBA finals or something like that that Trey could have played because you know it’s not like you know he could he can still shoot

Jump shots Etc but as STS emphasized I think I would do the same it would limit Trey young Trey is basic he’s a skill player he’s a small guy he needs all of his skills and dribbling with his left hand passing with the left hand finishing with the left hand all that

Stuff um players don’t have surgery for no reason so essentially this a it’s obviously a very clear and specific and significant injury to the point where it’s going to take surgery to repair it and uh there would be fear of long-term damage is what I have been hearing

Behind the scenes in the last couple of hours if he did not have this fixed so there’s not really any debate here he had to he have it have it done it is what it is the injury happened and by the way that’s kind of a sidebar here I

Get some of that’s probably just jokes but way too many people that I have seen were throwing around how it’s so convenient for the Hawks or whatever but I mean the injury happened on live television we all saw it and again you don’t have surgery in New York and fly

There all that stuff for for a long recovery period for no reason so obviously it’s a real injury so anyway the most optimistic scenario imaginable would have Trey missing more than half of the games remaining for the Hawks 14 is exactly how many how many he would

Miss if he was out for four weeks out of the 26 remaining for Atlanta several people have asked me this question could he be out for the rest of the season and the answer is yes he certainly could I want to stress could be out for the

Season that does does not mean he’s he’s going to be out for season but the regular season finale as I’m recording this podcast their final game game 82 is seven weeks from today and Tre is going to be re-evaluated in four weeks if you do the math on that logic there’s

Definitely a chance that he would not come back for one he might not be ready to come back that’s kind of just logical in reading some past stuff from Jeff stots information timelines from players um teams in the past team players with RCL injuries in their non shooting hands

Somewhere the projections initially are something like a return to basketball activities which is not necessarily games in six to eight weeks at times at least in that neighborhood obviously there’s seven weeks left so eight weeks is beyond the end of Wier season six weeks again be optimistic and that is a

Little bit close to the end of the season so even even if you just assume that Trey was going to come back no matter what as soon as he possibly could he still might not be able to return so keep that in mind again some guessing here some

Reporting some information but and again we’re all kind of educated guessing here but um could he be off of the Season absolutely then you have the reality that the Hawks could be out of the playoff race by then this will come up back up in a second later on in the show

But if the Hawks really struggle here which is possible they could be outside the playin mix by the time Trey is re-evaluated even much less when he could actually come back I’m not projecting that necessarily but it’s definitely possible let’s say they’re the 11 seed or the 12 seed in the east

At that point is there a reason to bring him back maybe not and that would be logical in some respects but again I’m not the one making the choice that’s always it’s always up to the doctors and the players and the coaches and all that stuff it’s it’s it’s an organizational

Decision especially when with the best player on the team in try young a lot of voices in the room on this one the training staff number one among them and of course Trey so a lot of ifs they’re not going to be able to be answered for

Several weeks so we’re all kind of projecting at this point in time that is the details as we know them right now and the breakdown of all that I’ll have more of my opinion and the analysis about the on court stuff and where they go from here in a second but uh there

You go on that I’ll actually answer some questions on your sort of mini mailbag form momentarily but first a work from our sponsors on the podcast today today’s show is brought to you by grammarly I hope produ this podcast by myself and that requires sending a ton

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Free at stitchfix they give you a style that makes you feel as good as you look and you can get started today at stitchfix.com lockon that is stitchfix.com lockon one more time the place to go is stitchfix.com lockon all right some nuts and bolts questions first and then we’ll into kind

Of the biggest picture one about the future and all that um people ask about the hardship exception basically there’s a rule in the NBA if you have a bunch of injuries you can apply for the hardship and be able to add a player without having to actually have a roster spot

Available the Hawks do not qualify right now you have to have at least four guys out for at least three games with a expectation of missing even more time and right now they only have three guys that qualify Trey will be out soon enough long enough along with the kongu

And gay but everybody else uh is not injured they’re they’re in the G League or whatever so they don’t qualify for that just now that’s just something to keep in mind and yes the Hawks still have a full roster the Trent for situation remains unsolved if you want

More on that I wrote about it at patreon.com BTR rolling recently I’ve been rting about this for a while but essentially Trent is ineligible to play and that’s been a a whole different Saga in recent days uh people ask about the schedule the Hawks have a interesting

Game coming up tonight as I’m recording this podcast I won’t do any announ on that on this show and then they have a coin flip game or so on Tuesday at home against Utah um they’ll be the underdog though in the next four games after that

They play two three games on the road in New York one against the Knicks and then two against Brooklyn not huge underdogs there but certainly on the road without Trey and and Ona tough sledding and then uh they also have a five-game West Coast trip looming at the end of March that’s

Going to be pretty tough no matter what that’s that’s hard for any team then you throw in the Hawks are short-handed and that’ll be a little bit of of an uphill battle you know schedule Wise It’s not a disaster at all but the Hawks have been losing some games recently that they

Probably should win and obviously um every game is its own animal but it’s not super easy nor super hard then there’s the draft question yes SS have their own pick this year if season ended today they had the ninth best Lottery odds if you ask me to guess kind of

Guess where they would be entering the lottery at the end of the season right now only with what I know at this very moment I would say probably in the Sim probably in a similar spot to where they are right now um that would be somewhere in that 10-11 range in the eastern

Conference and that means the ninth best Lottery odds they could get to something like 6 seven8 if they really really had a downturn the rest of the season but um that’s kind of where we are right now there’s basically no way for the fo to get into the top five pre- Lottery

Because the teams at the bottom are awful and they have a lot of losses Etc also the Hawks have the Kings pick in mix um the Hawks might have that pick the Kings have to make the top eight playoffs in the Western Conference that could happen but it’s not a lock by any

Means they’re in there now but a lot of the projection systems like ESPN BPI Etc had that as kind of a coin flip right now because the playin teams in the in the west like the Lakers and the Warriors are pretty tough and the kings

Are ahead of them right now but you have to be out of the play end too so t dbd on that but the Hawks could have two picks in the top 20 we will see and then the big question that everybody keeps asking sort of the impact um should the

Hawks tank will they tank how will they approach this I’m kind of gonna bring all those questions into one right now because I got like 30 40 questions about this right away and I I get why it’s obviously a huge looming thing right now as far as whether they

Will tank quote unquote or not I can’t answer that right now everyone around the team is obviously willing from this because as I’ve been saying for a while this has been a group focused on winning for quite some time they’re not really trying to entertain the thought of prioritizing draft position anything

Like that um you can see the way that they’ve actually used the rotation this year that they have been trying to win um even at the expense of young guys sometimes which I not loved but I’m talking about just the organizational point of view they’re obviously trying

To win every night so far this year could that change uh it could I don’t think it’s going to be a full-blown tank though for several reasons first it’s kind of hard to tank in the way that people are talking about it now when you have six of their top eight guys still

Healthy yeah obviously without Trey and a Kong wo if you remove those guys from the roster and don’t replace them as the Hawks are right now they’re not going to be very good in a big in a big picture sense that’s pretty obvious to me but anyway they’re still not horrible as

They are constructed right now obviously they’ll still win some games plus as I type this this is actually a very very important thing as I’m reading this to you in February 25th right now the Hawks are nine games ahead of the Blazers they’re 10 games ahead of the Hornets

They’re 13 and a half games ahead of the Spurs 15 15 games ahead of the Wizards and 16 games ahead of the Pistons so even if the Hawks literally lost every game the rest of the year which they’re not going to do they still probably

Would not get into the top three or four of the lottery so people I’ve seen a lot of people like recently in the last couple of hours Pro I’m sure some of it’s a tongue and- cheek um talking about like being in the top five in

Lottery odds or top five picks or taking for alexar or taking for or whatever um they’re going to need some luck in the lottery to have any chance of that because they’re not going to be entering the lottery in the top five even with all this stuff in hand even if they

Tried to tank the rest of the season they won’t be there so the more interesting thing is the Hawks currently have a 10 seed right they are three games ahead of Brooklyn and three and a half ahead of of Toronto as I’m recording this podcast on Sunday I said

It before that I thought coming into now basically that the Hawks were likely to make the plan unless something bad happen and obviously Trey going down for several weeks qualifies as something bad happening but part of why I said that in addition to the Hawks is is that they

Have a comfortable lead right now and the Raptors of the Nets are just not very good now on the other hand they’re not like super incentivized to not be very good because they don’t have their own picks necessarily Toronto has potentially the ability to keep control

Their own pick but Brooklyn does not um and again neither is terribly impressive even a three or four game lead this late in the season is pretty significant it’s not like impossible to give away as the Hawks might do in the coming days but that’s a real lead they have on Toronto

And Brooklyn the Hawks could fall below those teams but again that’s more of a discussion than it is like kind of get the mythical pursuit of a top five Lottery odd situation they could fall out of the play in for sure that’s not impossible that might even be likely if

You want to be pessimistic about not having Trey right now but anyway there’s the other part of the question about whether they should tank I think the Hawks are not quite there yet and don’t really need to be but I will say this if it was me I would prioritize the future

More than the present now what does that mean I think the clear way to do that is to make it a point to play young guys and especially Kobe bukin a lot the rest of the season making the backup point guard behind D jante and also play him

Some with d Jon I’d start doing that basically now if it was me not say has to happen tonight as I’m recording this podcast but um the rest of the year my plan at least as long as Trey is out would be to play Kobe buffin 25 minutes

A game whatever whatever DJ’s off the floor back a point guard and then have them play a little bit together that’s hopefully the role you want him to be in long term as a real contributor and he might struggle he’s a rookie guard it might happen but um again prioritizing

The future over the present the rest of the guys that are young AJ Griffin Seth Lundy um a little bit more Nuance there Griffin looked pretty good on Saturday in the G league but they might reasonably believe that he needs some more reps at at the College Park level

Because he’s not played a lot of basketball that’s fine with me that wouldn’t bother me a lot I think pretty soon by the end of the year you want to see what he’s going to be able to be capable doing in the NBA but uh TBD on

That Lundy obviously a little bit older guy not as urgent second round pick but I’d be fine looking at him as well I think he could be in the on NBA court right now and would look totally fine so it’s also brutal that a Kong’s out right

Now because obviously it would be pretty intuitive to play him a lot because he’s a young guy they have him cost control long term on an on an extension hopefully he’ll come back and be able to do that at some point because on top of everything else capella is of course not

Not a long-term guy on the roster also he and Murray have never fit very well together capella plays much better with Trey um than with when than with with Jon so they have to play capella they don’t have bodies like I’ve red about this before but right now they have two

Centers and three forwards on the whole roster so you can’t just not play any of those guys he has to play so does Bruno that’s just where they are um hopefully the Hawks might go out and get someone to rectify the Trent for situation and maybe bring in another big but it won’t

Be an exciting player it’s going to be a long-term development guy or a plug-and-play depth piece but no matter what I think prioritizing the simplest way I put again is to focus on the future more than the present maybe stuff like resting bogy on backto backs to

Kind of make sure that he’s not overextending himself capella same thing if they had another Center they could maybe have Clint sit back Tob backs and not play a ton of minutes and all that stuff that’s probably wise shortterm and long term to be honest with you but

We’ll see what happens there but no matter what anybody tells you right now we do not know either way if Trey young will be back this season or where the Hawks will be in the standings when he comes back we don’t know we might have

Guesses we don’t know I made it a point to even for the injury I personally care a lot more about the future than the nine or 10 SE this year I’ve been saying that for weeks now it’s even more the case now with Trey out and a realistic

Projection is that the Hawks are probably not going to be as good without Trey as they are with him while I know there are some people and I think it’s it’s probably grown a little bit I think his approval rating is lower than it’s been locally um I I I kind of just

Dismiss out of hand that the Hawks would be better without Trey that’s a very simple very silly thing I should say um could it happen in one game sample sizes sure could they win tonight could they win Tuesday sure they could they’re not going to be awful I don’t think but

They’re not better without Trey just by the way the last 12 games without Trey going back to the last two seasons they’re three and nine you know that’s not that’s not a significant sample size I probably say they’re gonna be better than that over the course of a full

Season if that were to be the case but right now they’re 24 and 32 as I record this podcast I would bet that they are worse than that without Trey we’ll see and the last thing by the way before I get out of here is that I won’t be too

Cloudy on this I’m try not to be too negative but it’s been a a pretty brutal season for the the Hawks I know Hawks fans know that especially ones that listen to this podcast and watch the podcast and I do really appreciate all of the support it’s been a frustrating

Maddening bizarre um not terribly fun season if you are a Hawks fan right now and I get all that this is not gonna make it any better I get that potentially and and look I don’t I don’t blame anybody for looking ahead toward the draft at this point in time um

That’s just the nature of phantom you’re not on the team you don’t have to focus on the upcoming stuff but all that said this news isn’t going to make it any better um I understand The Angst I’ve seen since the news broke the Hawks are not in the greatest place you don’t want

To be in the 10 seed no matter what and then you don’t want to be the 10 seed and then you lose your best player for several weeks you already are down your most exciting long-term Center etc etc so no matter what that’s kind of where

We are I did a good job at least a thorough job I would say hopefully of going through all the questions if you have more of them I will answer them moving forward I plan on doing a podcast after the game tonight as I’m recording this podcast between the Hawks and the

Magic I’ll have more on that podcast more later on this week so um I know some some podcast might kind of go in and now I am always here I will be here to cover the the stretch run as I always would I’ll give the info that I have all

The time as this stretch run folds without him and and without Trey and his impact and as we find out more and more about how the Hawks might handle the rest of the season I’ll have all of that for you uh I’ll set off now for the for

The actual game starts between the Hawks and the magic on this Sunday but please do me a favor if you have not already and subscribe to this podcast check us out on YouTube if you want the immediate stuff right now by the time you listen to this podcast hopefully on Monday some

Of us least anyway my audio only feeds will be back up and running that was a network change over the weekend but hopefully that’ll be rectified by midday on Monday but check us out and subscribe Apple Spotify Amazon music um definitely YouTube Etc also follow us on Twitter

SLX loton Hawks follow me there as well at BT roll I also write about the Hawks including a little bit of writing about aong this weekend and about Trey this weekend at patreon.com BTR Roland your patronage there would be awesome as well thank you very much for listening to the podcast

Hopefully this was kind of coherent as I’m trying to get it in before tip off on this Sunday evening stay tuned and we’ll see you all next time

Brad Rowland (@BTRowland, DIME on UPROXX) hosts episode No. 1660 of the Locked on Hawks podcast. The show arrives in emergency form to break down the news that Atlanta Hawks guard Trae Young will be sidelined at least four weeks due to finger surgery.

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