Oklahoma’s Young evolves, improves
Freshman guard continues to find ways to impress
NORMAN, Okla. – If you have watched college basketball this season, this probably does not need to be said. But, well, here goes:
“I love three-pointers,” says Trae Young, Oklahoma’s precocious shooting star — but let’s go a little, uh, deeper.
“I thought the further I shot made it cooler or made it more fun,” he says, referring to when he was first learning the game. “So I always tried to shoot it (from) as far back as I could.”
There. It’s out there. And this is no surprise. Those deep threes are why we are all entranced by the Trae Young Phenomenon, why midway through his first season at Oklahoma — almost certainly, his only season at Oklahoma — the 6-2, 180-pound guard leads the highlights, almost every night. It’s also why even longtime observers of the game struggle to find a good comparison for a guy who leads the nation in scoring (30.3-point average) and assists (9.5).
In college ball, at least, it is very possible we have not seen anyone or anything quite like Young. But here — don’t miss it in the aerial barrage — is the really significant thing to note: He is evolving.
“I don’t think there’s any question,” Tom Crean says. “He’s taking the skill level he has and the gifts that he has and they just keep getting better and better.”
The former Indiana coach and current ESPN analyst has seen Young play four times. Starting in early December and continuing through Young’s 44point, nine-assist performance in beating Baylor 98-96 on Tuesday, he’s literally had a front-row seat to watch. As the calendar flips to February and Oklahoma heads into the second half of the Big 12’s round-robin schedule, here’s fair warning:
“Every game I’ve done, there’s something different he shows that is absolutely controlling,” Crean says. “He just keeps getting better.”
Watching Young hoist and hit shots from near the logo is thrilling. But there’s so much more. He has uncanny passing ability. His drives — all hesitation and then a surge goodbye — result in an array of floaters and layups, or free throws or assists.
“He can do so much,” says Oklahoma coach Lon Kruger, who has handed Young the keys and freedom to drive almost any way he wants. “He’s got the full package, obviously. He shoots it from range. He can get by people. He can create for others. He’s got a package not many people have.”
Sometimes Young takes bad shots or too many. Occasionally, he attempts passes that aren’t there or is careless with the ball. And in mid-January, it seemed like perhaps the circus was running into some difficulty. After a hot start, Oklahoma had lost three of four games. After his hot start, maybe Young had gotten ahead of himself. Or the Big 12’s defenses, a variety of pressures designed to stop the phenom, had at least slowed him. Or some combination of both.
But Young has taken criticism — after a 12-turnover performance in a loss at Kansas State, and most notably after taking 39 shots (and scoring 48 points) in an overtime loss at Bedlam rival Oklahoma State — and responded. The next time out against Kansas, he didn’t attempt a three-pointer in a first-half performance that instead focused on passing and cutting. He finished with 26 points on nine shots, with nine assists. Oklahoma won. Afterward, he acknowledged the performance was “a statement.”
“I was getting a lot of stuff back saying I didn’t like my teammates, I was a ball hog and stuff like that,” he says. “So I wanted to come out that Kansas game and show that’s not how I am.”
Those amazing wrist flicks from 30 feet and farther — way-downtown-why-is-he-shooting-that-BANG! — were honed, morning after early morning, at the Norman YMCA. Along with his father, Rayford Young, who was a very good player at Texas Tech, Young would arrive at 6 a.m. and shoot for an hour. Sometimes they would reconvene in the evenings for another hour; it was a rare day when Young didn’t hoist at least 400 and maybe 500 shots. Many of those — most of them? — were from beyond the three-point line.
“I used to tell him to scoot in some when he was a little kid,” Rayford Young says. “But he would always do it. … Kids just like to shoot it deep, man — you know?
“He was never a kid who was enamored with dunking. All that stuff wasn’t cool per se to him. It was always about knocking down the deep long ball.”
It still is, which is why the most common comparison Young gets is to Stephen Curry. If, as Kruger notes, the comparison is unfair, that’s because it’s largely to the current Curry, perhaps the NBA’s best player, and not so much Curry in college (the case could be made that Young has been better as a freshman than Curry was as a junior).
“I don’t mind it,” Young says of the comparisons. “Who wouldn’t want to be compared to a two-time MVP and a champion? But at the same time, I try to be my own self. … Hopefully someday someone will be saying the same things about me.”
All of this is from a freshman at midseason, and here’s the thing: During recent games, Young has shown a tendency to spend the early moments, and sometimes most of the first half, in a mode that almost seems passive, at least when compared to some of his earlier performances. But it’s actually something else.
Young is probing defenses, gauging their intent, how they plan to guard him. Each opponent, it seems, has tried a slightly different wrinkle — though mostly, the strategies include trying to keep the ball out of his hands, pressuring him as soon as he crosses midcourt and running a second defender at him when he has it. But Young is discovering new ways to impact — or as Crean puts it, to control — games. It’s perhaps in part the natural development of a freshman getting big minutes. But it’s also a function, Young says, of a desire to improve. Although Rayford Young says his son hasn’t considered what he’ll do after the season and hints Trae “might surprise us all” and come back to Oklahoma for a second season, his path to the NBA seems clear.
What will he become when he gets there? Various draft projections have Young as a certain lottery pick. Press seats at Oklahoma’s games are routinely stuffed with NBA scouts. And at least one observer sees potential for something next level at the next level.
“You look at him,” Crean says, “and you see the quickness, the speed, the burst, and the fact that he’s 19. And you know he’s gonna get a lot stronger, he’s gonna get a lot quicker. I mean, you hate to say he’s just scratching the surface — but he very well might be.”
We’ll see. For now, let’s enjoy the show. With almost every game, college basketball’s shooting star seems to scratch a little deeper.