NBA Hater Report: Steph Curry saving the Warriors isn't sustainable; Hawks might be better without Trae Young

Welcome back to the NBA Hater Report: A breakdown of some of the players, teams and trends around the league that are drawing the ire of yours truly. If you're not a fellow pessimist, proceed with caution. 

Steph saving Warriors isn't sustainable

The Warriors have won three straight, giving the appearance of a steadied ship, but that's only if your glass of Kool-Aid is half full. Mine's half empty. First of all, the most recent win came against the Pelicans, which doesn't even count, especially without Zion Williamson on the floor. 

The other two were road wins against the Spurs, irrefutably impressive feats. Problem is, Stephen Curry had to score 95 points on 15 3-pointers over those two games to win by a combined six points. On Sunday, the Warriors were trailing by 10 halfway through the fourth quarter and hanging by a thread when he rattled off these three buckets to flip the script. 

Curry continues to author superhuman performances as a matter of routine and certainly it's an enviable ace to have up the sleeve if you're the Warriors. But they've already had to play that card too many times this season to defeat the good teams. It's just not a sustainable model. 

The first time came against the Nuggets in the opening week of the season. Curry went for 42, including 35 after halftime. He scored 16 straight points over a six-minute surge spanning the end of the fourth quarter and the start of overtime. He outscored the Nuggets all by himself, 18-15, from the 2:42 mark of the fourth forward. He casually dropped this bomb to tie the game on Golden State's final possession of regulation. 

Again, it's awesome that Curry is still doing this stuff. It's impossibly fun to watch. He's the signature "you had to see it to believe it" athlete of my lifetime by a landslide. A performer of the highest order. But even with him doing all this, at 37 years old, in his 17th season, the Warriors still needed two huge 3-pointers from a 20% 3-point shooter in Gary Payton II to win the second game against San Antonio. 

Other than the Lakers on opening night, these three games are the only truly good teams the Warriors have beat this season. Otherwise they've made their hay against the likes of the Pacers, Clippers, Grizzlies, Suns and Pelicans. 

Jimmy Butler is simply not doing enough as a co-star. He's a stabilizing force, sure. But he just isn't aggressive to score. It still looks like the last thing on his mind, almost until he's forced into it, a max-contract player all too happy to just be another cog in the wheel that spins pretty much entirely in the space created by Steph. 

Curry's great, but he needs scoring help. And not just the kind of scoring he basically does all the work for anyway, like the dive cut Butler scored on down the stretch against San Antonio as everyone chased Curry. That's a byproduct bucket for Butler. A lot of guys can get that. And yes, that's a great advantage of having Curry running around out there. 

But bottom line is, if your only real formula to compete with the best teams in the league is for one guy to start throwing superhero flames, while you'll get some amazing performances like the ones we've already seen so far this year, eventually it'll be Curry and the Warriors who burn out. 

A Trae Young referendum is happening

The Atlanta Hawks stormed back from a 22-point fourth-quarter deficit to defeat the Suns on Sunday for their fifth straight win. They are now 8-2 this season without Young, who sprained his MCL on Oct. 29 vs. Brooklyn and is set to be reevaluated at the end of of this month. They were 1-3 in the games he played (technically, he played seven minutes in the win over the Nets). 

It's impossible to ignore what's going on. Without Young, Atlanta's defense, which has long been a doormat with him on the floor, has turned into a top-five unit. Not including the win over the Suns on Sunday, look at the Cleaning the Glass numbers with Young on and off the floor so far this season. 

You can't brush this off to a small sample. Last season, the Hawks were a 35th percentile defense giving up 116.8 points per 100 possessions with Young on the court, per CTG. They are the second-ranked defense in the league since he went down this season, and there is no reason to believe they can sustain that when he gets back. 

Everything is different defensively without Young out there for the obvious reason that everyone else can defend. And defend with pressure. With Young out there, offenses always have a weak link to hunt for an easy bucket and generally speaking are afforded the luxury of less stressful possessions from the start as the opposing point guard is never being pressured. 

No longer is that the case. The Hawks, to a man, are up and into everyone now. Nothing comes easy. They are long and athletic. They move their feet. Their hands are active. Without so much of their collective effort being spent covering for Young, usually to little avail, they are now keeping their one-on-one matchups in a phone booth and swarming to the ball for steals. 

Atlanta entered play on Sunday tallying 10.7 steals per game, trailing only Detroit and Oklahoma City by a fraction of a point, and the 23.6 points per game they're generating via turnovers is tied with the Thunder for tops in the league. There is a lot of this happening: 

And this:

And this:

And this:

And we're not just talking about a bunch of gambling here. Again, there are no weak links on the floor with Young out. Everyone can contain their man. Everyone can rotate. This is what it looks like when an offense has no weak option to bail them out of a tight possession. 

Now, the tradeoff for Young cratering Atlanta's defense has always been that he lifts the offense. But so far, the offense has operated at a nearly identical rating to what the Hawks registered last season with Young in charge. Since Young went down, in fact, they have boasted a top-10 offense -- tops in the league in points added per 100 transition plays but also surviving just fine in the half court at 98.8 points per 100 plays (last season, with Young, they were at 98.1, per CTG). 

That's not all. Last year, the Hawks averaged 29.9 assists per game and score 75.5 points off those assists. Since Young went down this season, they entered play on Sunday averaging a league-high 31.3 assists per game since (they had 35 assists against Phoenix) and scoring 81.9 points via those assists, also tops in the league over that span. 

These numbers tell an important story. Everyone is involved now. Everyone is empowered to make plays. It was true in years past that Atlanta didn't have as many capable offensive players, but now that they do you have to wonder if it's getting to the point where the offensive upside Young provides is worth the tradeoff of a defense that goes in the tank when he's on the floor. 

It's not a simple question to answer. Despite the success the Hawks are having without Young, there's no denying his value as a half-court creator, which matters all the more in the playoffs, especially if he can ever get his 3-point numbers to stick around the 38% range, which shouldn't be too much to ask for a guy who is known as an elite shooter despite his numbers never supporting that reputation. 

But I'll tell you what: the day is fast approaching where the Hawks are going to have to seriously ask themselves if, all things considered, they are better off without Young. They didn't give him a contract extension. They reportedly would've traded him last summer if anyone wanted him. And now they are absolutely flying without him this season.