It’s unfortunate this entire story cannot be about the masterclass performance Trae Young had Monday night in the Moda Center. Young once said he feels like he’s on fire every time he steps inside an arena, and he was. He was a one-man blazing inferno against the Blazers.

The Hawks’ star player finished with a career-high 56 points on 17-of-26 shooting, 7-of-12 from 3, had 14 assists and four rebounds. Atlanta lost 136-131.

Young was responsible for 86 of the Hawks’ 131 points, a number so high that it’s only happened a handful of times in NBA history. Young previously reached the 80-plus point club in March 2019 in a wild triple-overtime game against the Bulls, and he’s now done it again in his fourth season in the league. Only a few players have eclipsed the 80-point club multiple times, and they’re each some of the best of all time: Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, LeBron James, James Harden, Russell Westbrook and now Trae Young.

Young joined Robertson, Westbrook, Harden, Michael Jordan and Tony Parker as the only players ever with a 55-point, 10-assist game. This should be a story lauding Young for one of the best individual games we’ve ever seen. This should be a story discussing in great detail how incredible those final two shots were after taking a hard foul from Portland center Jusuf Nurkic that caused Young to fall hard on his left elbow. To break his previous career-high of 50 points, Young swished a 3 while falling away to his right. He followed that up by banking in an absurd 36-footer off the glass to reach 56 points.

This was one of those games where it was clear in the first quarter that Young knew he had a chance to do something special. I tweeted during the first quarter that I thought Young could score 50. The Blazers have the worst defense in the league and not one individual defender to slow Young down. He knows when he can cook whoever is in front of him with ease, and that was going to happen against the Blazers, no matter who they tried guarding him with.