Trae Young Making A Name For Himself As A Passer In 2018 Summer

TheSportster

By Rodrigo Lobato

Published Jul 15, 2018

Trae Young is going through an identity shift as the soon-to-be star player is becoming more of a passer.

Last NCAA season, Trae young became an internet sensation due to his insane 30-feet shots and 40-points games playing for Oklahoma, to the point of getting compared with one of the greatest shooters NBA has ever seen, Steph Curry. However, his 24 percent from the field this Summer league displays something different.

In this year's NBA draft, Young was selected with the number five pick by Dallas Mavericks and traded to the Atlanta Hawks for the European sensation Luka Doncic. A decision that a lot of Hawks fans were not fond of since the Oklahoma freshman player has generated a lot of doubts, perhaps due to his young age, size, and defensive limitations. Nevertheless, his 811 points conference’s freshman scoring record and 22 assists single-game record caught the eye of the Hawks’ general manager, Travis Schlenk, picking him as the future of the franchise.

The 19-year-old player has already started wearing the Atlanta Hawk’s jersey in the summer league, playing five games where he has only scored 16 out of 58 field goal attempts, with multiple airballs from the three-point line. Notwithstanding, he has proven to be a playmaker as good as his college year, averaging 4.3 and 7.0 assists per game in the tournaments in which he has played this summer, Utah and Las Vegas; which casts doubt on whether Young will have a bigger role as a passer in the NBA than a shooter. This would bring him closer to the Steve Nash comparison than the Steph Curry one — parallels that have been made since the Big-12-freshman-of-the-year announced his intentions to enter the NBA draft.

Although it is far too early to draw any conclusions about Young’s style of play, we must not lose sight of the fact that this is just the summer league. The Hawk’s rookie star still has plenty of time to reach his college shooting level. And what better proof of this than Curry himself. The two-time NBA MVP averaged 32.5 percent from the field in his summer league debut, nothing to do with his current 47.7.

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