Trae Young is saying the quiet part out loud this week.
In the latest episode of his “From The Point” podcast, the Atlanta Hawks star Young made some candid comments about former Hawks coach Lloyd Pierce. Young admitted that they butted heads and even said that Pierce didn’t believe in him as much as the Atlanta organization did.
“Me and Lloyd had such a good relationship, but there was a lot of rocky roads,” said Young, per ClutchPoints. “I think the reason me and Lloyd really couldn’t see eye-to-eye on certain things is because he wants to win just as bad as I did, but the team we had wasn’t built to win at that time.
“I feel like he was brought in to be a development coach, and I was trying to win,” Young continued. “And those two things just don’t work well with each other. I was playing hard, but I just feel like we didn’t see eye-to-eye. I just feel he didn’t believe in me as much as the organization did at times, and we kind of just bumped heads. And to be honest, I have so much love for him.”
The two-time All-Star Young also fired back at the claim that he is supposedly a “coach-killer,” saying that “certain coaches just fit certain teams … it doesn’t make them bad or good.” You can listen to the full podcast here.
Young did indeed have plenty of reported issues with Pierce, his first coach in the NBA but one that he never won more than 30 games with in a single season. Pierce was fired in the middle of the 2020-21 campaign, and the Hawks went on to make the Eastern Conference Finals that very same season under new coach Nate McMillan.
Of course, Young will have a hard time shedding that “coach-killer” label since he also later had problems with McMillan (with McMillan eventually being fired too). Now we’ll see how Young gets along with current Hawks head coach Quin Snyder in Snyder’s first full season in charge next year.
