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Trae Young Appeared To Take Shot At Former Coach Lloyd Pierce After Team USA Loss

The Atlanta Hawks’ season can be seen as one big success story. But was it?

Well eventually yes, but after a promising start, the Hawks have failed to live up to their expectations, eventually leading to led them firing head coach Lloyd Pierce.

Reports from The Athletic then revealed that the organization’s decision to move on wasn’t just because of their record, but due to star player Trae Young and other Hawks wanted Pierce gone.

This definitely ended up being the right move. With Pierce as their head coach, the Franchise’s record was 14-20, which majorly improved under Pierce’s successor Nate McMillan, who coached the Hawks to an impressive 27-11 record, and to the conference finals.

Trae Young apparently would have also loved to be part of Team USA’s Olympic roster this year. Head coach Gregg Popovich though elected to go with a team that didn’t include three of the NBA’s top young superstars in Young, Zion Williamson, and Ja Morant.

When it comes to Young’s snub, we’ll have to look at the list of assistant coaches, which leads to it becoming difficult to ignore Lloyd Pierce’s name on the list of Team USA coaches.

Immediately after Team USA’s second loss to Australia earlier this week, Young posted his displeasure on Twitter.

— Trae Young (@TheTraeYoung) July 13, 2021

“You have to understand when it’s your time, when it’s your opportunity.”

I asked Hawks coach (and Team USA assistant coach) Lloyd Pierce if it was hard to see Trae Young not named a finalist for the roster: pic.twitter.com/nEkiSbvGQq

— Sarah K. Spencer (@sarah_k_spence) February 10, 2020

We know the reason Trae. pic.twitter.com/DNHo7oId1U

— Austin (@AustinPlanet) July 13, 2021

they missed out trae pic.twitter.com/hb9dAlLGWA

— KimoLBJ ➐ (@KimoLbj) July 13, 2021