So I have a habit of watching pressers and have felt that Trae’s been over Nate for a bit with how he’s been answering some of the questions he’s been given during losses. Personally, I didn’t think too much of it because these were after losses, and I personally agreed with what Trae was saying. That said, given the report earlier today and Trae’s absence from the bench, I thought I’d share some of what I’ve noticed for the people on this sub.
HEAT POSTGAME INTERVIEW
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwxx9TlsFcA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwxx9TlsFcA)
The most explicit was in the postgame loss to the Heat. Nate explicitly called out the Hawks for not having enough ‘aggressiveness’ on the court. A reporter asked Trae about that about 30s in, and Trae answers that players need to have a purpose and need to be smart – that being aggressive by itself just leads to turnovers. This ain’t much of an issue by itself, but it’s Trae saying that Nate’s coaching is wrong.
CELTICS POSTGAME INTERVIEW
Another one that’s kind of related is in the Celtic’s postgame presser, where 3 minutes in Trae speculates that the Hawks are at the bottom of the league in 3 point shooting because they are overthinking it, which reading between the lines is what happens when you don’t have an offensive system and have to figure out what ‘play random and aggressive’ means and don’t have specific roles and positions for guys. Trae actually calls out that players don’t have specific roles and positions here.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCG41CMwodA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCG41CMwodA)
Personally, I catch a lot of the postgame stuff and Trae does his best to give non-answers for the most part. For example the Sixers postgame was typical player non-answers where he actually said that players need to be more aggressive, etc and aligned explicitly with Nate. The fact that Trae’s transitioned away from that to basically criticizing the offense is pretty telling and is similar to how he acted postgame with LP.
I obviously could be reading too much into this, but these pressers plus the reporting earlier today paints a pretty clear picture about Trae’s dissatisfaction with the offense. FWIW, I agree with Trae. Nate’s ‘random and aggressive’ PnR scheme is great against teams that play drop like the Nuggets, Bucks, and Sixers, but against teams that switch like the Heat and Celtics, the Hawks offense will continue to struggle.
by streetsandshine
2 Comments
What did Nate say tonight? I was expecting there to have already been something about that and the whole situation this morning.
Well this is a quick way of losing the dressing room for Nate. Once you lose the faith of your best player it’s a slippery slope. I’ve seen these situations in other sports and it normally always ends in the coach getting the sack.