Atlanta Hawks Coach Fires Back At Trae Young Accusations

This has not been a great week for the Atlanta Hawks. The team is mired in controversy after star point guard, and face of the franchise, Trae Young skipped out on a game Friday night after a dispute with head coach Nate McMillan.

Young had said that the coach gave him a "choice" of either playing off the bench, or, according to NBA Insider Shams Charania, "not showing up at the arena at all." Young chose the latter.

Today, McMillan fired back at that assertion.

The one thing that I do want to respond (to), there was something said about me, telling Trae to not show up for a game. I will never ever, and have never ever told a player not to show up for a game. Okay, that’s just false. All right? So I wanted to make a comment on that.

McMillan continued, adding that he was frustrated that the "private" disagreement got out into the public.

"There is something happening every single day that we have to address and manage and a situation happened, that is private. Okay, it’s private. It’s no different than any other day for me, in our group and a story was leaked about that situation. You know, those are things that we don’t normally talk about or address. You know, things happen with our players on a bus, on the plane in the hotels. I mean, we’re together a lot. We’re family...

"Part of coaching is keeping your team together, keeping a group, a family together."

McMillan said he address the team about the situation, and hopes it's the end of it.

For his part, Young also refused to talk about it, calling it a "private matter."

“When you’re an outside guy like you are, you don’t understand the private situation, you should probably stay on the outside.”

Trae Young had a tense exchange with this reporter on his 'situation’ with Hawks coach Nate McMillan 😳

(via @ZachKleinWSB)
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— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPointsApp) December 5, 2022