What happened to Trae Young? Expected return timeline for Hawks' star guard & more explored

The Atlanta Hawks' already tough season is about to get even more difficult as star point guard Trae Young is expected to miss a significant amount of time. Not only will he miss Sunday's game against the Orlando Magic, but he will miss significantly more time.

Young will undergo surgery to repair a torn ligament on the fifth finger of his left hand. The minimum amount of time he is expected to miss is four weeks, according to the team.

If the season ended today, the 10th-place Hawks (24-23) would have the final play-in spot and could fight for a chance in the playoffs.

However, Atlanta has 26 games remaining before the season ends on April 14, so Atlanta will need to fight to retain its position. That will be more difficult now that Trae Young is expected to miss a significant amount of time.

Young is the Hawks' No. 1 option on offense, leading the team in points and assists per game with 26.4 and 10.8 respectively. This role will now fall on Dejounte Murray, who is second in both of these statistics for the Hawks.

In Young's absence, Murray will most likely become the team's primary point guard while Bogdan Bogdanovic, Garrison Matthews, Wesley Matthews or even De'Andre Hunter could eat up minutes for the shooting guard spot.

Trae Young joins Mouhamed Gueye and Onyeka Okongwu on the Hawks' injury report.

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Trae Young almost missed out on the All-Star game this season

When the reserves for this year's All-Star starters were announced, one notable omission was Atlanta Hawks point guard Trae Young. Many fans said that Young was snubbed and understandably so.

He was a fan favorite, as he was ranked No. 2 in fan votes behind only Tyrese Haliburton with 2,270,401 fan votes. However, he only had 39 player votes which ranked for six, and he was sixth among the media, receiving only one vote in that category.

Many fans expected that he would be named among the All-Star reserves, but they were again stunned when he was left out of that list in favor of Tyrese Maxey, Donovan Mitchell, Jaylen Brown and Jalen Brunson.

However, injuries to Julius Randle and Joel Embiid opened up more replacement spots. Young and Scottie Barnes were called on to replace the injured All-Stars.

This latest selection is Young's third, as he was named an All-Star starter in 2020 and again in 2022.