Trae has tremendously improved on defensive effort. I notice him work extremely hard to stay in front of the opposing guards these days.

The problem is that the team’s current style also seems to depend a lot on running a lot and trying to play a lot more on transition which is probably also very taxing.

Additionally, Trae always had to work a lot harder for his shots considering how undersized he is.

All this combining make me feel like he is just not used to expending this much effort on both offense and defense.

Previously he did not give this much defensive effort. And the offense was also him just slowly bringing up the ball and then either launching a 3 or driving for a lob/floater.

Maybe his shot will continue to improve as he adapts to this new faster paced style and improves his conditioning more.