The wristband worn by Hawks top draft pick Trae Young asks the wearer, “What’s Your Why?”
That bit of hip philosophical shorthand is meant, said Young, “to remind people to think about what you are doing it for.” Whatever “it” may be. Whether that be doctoring, lawyering or, in his case, shooting and passing basketballs from occasionally absurd distances and angles.
For just a 19-year old, he comes bearing many messages. On draft night, Young even posted some on the loafers that complimented his maroon-and-black jacket and knee-length slacks.
“Be Different,” was written on the side of one shoe. As if the wardrobe itself didn’t thoroughly make the point.
“Any time I can be different, I try to do it,” Young said last week, upon visiting his new workplace for the first time. “I led the country in points and assists (at Oklahoma last season), that’s never been done. That’s being different in a way.
“I want to carry that here.”
The new Hawk – at once the darling and the dartboard of college basketball, now one of the great new intrigues of the NBA – is definitely different.
Let’s count a few of the ways.
The Ornithophobia Thing
Only two teams in the NBA – the Hawks and the New Orleans Pelicans – have bird-based nicknames. It was perversely fitting, then, that the single player in the draft with a certifiable fear of birds would have to go to one of those two.
Without a care, Young will drive his 185-pound body into a lane filled with large people bent on ripping the competitive will from his chest. And yet a flock of pigeons will send him scurrying for cover.
He mostly accepts his neurosis with great good humor.
“I don’t know (where it comes from),” he said. “Just not knowing what to do if a bird attacks you. If a snake comes at you – obviously I’m scared of snakes – you can grab it. But if it’s a bird, I don’t know what you do. Maybe I had a bad dream about a bird when I was a kid.
“Even the toughest guys in the world can be afraid of something small. I’m not too ashamed to be afraid of birds.”
So, what happens when Harry the Hawk, the team’s mascot, comes out for one of his skits during a game? Might a bird of that size, even one with a human inside, turn the team’s nascent point guard catatonic?
Young laughs. “Hopefully I’m sitting down during the time out, getting a drink when he runs over by our bench.”
“I think I can grow into liking a hawk.”
The Season Spent in a Blender Thing
With the dawn of the 2017-18 college basketball season, there was an instant phenom born. Everyone wanted to know about this wisp of a freshman guard in Oklahoma who would pull up to shoot practically off the in-bounds pass and run the floor like he was auditioning for the lead in the next “Transporter” movie. Nobody in the college game was capturing imaginations like Trae Young.
Around the time in January that he put up 39 shots while losing to Oklahoma State, perceptions began to change. As his numbers began to dip, the long-range shots weren’t so amusing anymore. The turnovers were seen to be more grievous. And the Sooners started losing (six straight in February, one-and-done in the Big 12 tournament, the same in the NCAA tourney, bolstering those critics who said they didn’t belong there).
“There was definitely a drop-off. But he set the bar so high the first 12 to 14 games that there was naturally going to be some drop-off,” Oklahoma coach (and former Hawks coach) Lon Kruger said.
Opponents got the idea they should maybe swarm that Young kid on defense. A tough conference began playing him tougher. He didn’t have the support group around him to deflect the added defensive pressure. The more Young tried to carry, the more he tired.
Also, Kruger said, “The pressures to sustain his performance, the social media pressures that a 19-year old deals with – it was a new experience for him to endure. Especially when he was the darling of the country the first 15 games.”
The result was a ready-made sports talk hot topic. Even his father, Ray, a one-time Texas Tech guard who is in medical supply sales in Norman, calls his boy, “The most polarizing figure in college basketball last year.”
“It was a good learning experience for him,” Ray added. “I think it’s going to prepare him for this level. It will keep him headstrong, because he knows at the end of the day, it’s all about playing basketball, staying close to your family and keeping God first. Everything will work out.”
“That made for a little bit of a struggle internally for him. Should I or shouldn’t I (shoot)?” Kruger said. For instance, after the 39-shot game, Young put up a season-low nine attempts. And Oklahoma won, beating Kansas.
“He had never dealt with that before,” Kruger said. “A lot of new experiences for him – and overall, he got through it in pretty good shape.”
The Shooting from the Exurbs Thing
On the Hawks practice court, they have a line that is several feet behind the NBA 3-point line. They call it the 4-point line, there mostly as a guide for spacing players during drills.
Only when Young came in for his workout with the team, he promptly began shooting from behind it, as if it were a new challenge.
“It went against why I had the line out there,” said new Hawks coach Lloyd Pierce.
“I don’t want these guys taking deep 3’s. But when you have it and teams are going to give you that much separation ...”
With Young, a certain re-calibration of acceptable shooting distance is called for, just as it was in Oklahoma. “He was doing things people hadn’t seen before and then they became acceptable,” said Oklahoma assistant Chris Crutchfield, whose sons grew up playing with Young in Norman.
You’ll watch him effortlessly shoot from 30 feet, groan, and then just nod when it’s good. Certainly dad did.
“Sometimes I’ll see him take a shot and wonder about it – but then he hits it,” says Ray. “He’s just so confident. The biggest thing people are going to learn about Trae is he’s confident in his abilities.”
Such a range was born of necessity, Young said:
“I grew up playing shooting guard – I couldn’t really dribble until the eighth grade. I didn’t want it to get taken from me.
“About eighth grade people started getting taller and I was staying the same size. While people were getting taller on the wing position, I had to scoot farther back (to shoot). I couldn’t shoot at the regular 3-point line because that’s where all the defense was. I had to keep scooting farther back.”
“I know sometimes this year I shot some deep ones that were bad shots. If I could go back, I’d change it. But there are also times I shot deep shots that went in, and you don’t say anything about it.
“As long as I focus and take the right shots – every now and then if there’s space it’s a deep shot – then I think coach will be OK with it. As long as I’m making smart point guard plays.”
As his big brother was making the interview rounds at the Hawks facility this week, 8-year-old Timothy Young grabbed a ball and ventured onto the court. Went directly to the top of the NBA 3-point line, and began heaving up shots even though it was all he could do to reach the front of the rim. It’s in the blood, you see.
The Luka Doncic Thing
Young, of course, was not really the Hawks first pick in this draft. They selected another 19-year old, European pro Luka Doncic, with the third pick. Then turned around and traded him to Dallas to take Young with the fifth pick and acquire an additional future first-round pick.
In their first-hand work with Young, the Hawks convinced themselves that the player listed at 6-foot-2, 180 pounds could physically hang in the NBA. The 42-year-old Pierce himself guarded the youngster during the workouts. “And all I can do is run, jump and grab,” the coach said. And he did a lot of the latter.
“You may spend your time being physical,” Pierce concluded, “while he’s just spending time eluding you.”
“The too-small thing, that’s been the same criticism I’ve had growing up,” Young said. “It’s my job to make that not even a factor.”
Just ask Young, he’ll tell you that he’s stronger than he looks. A GQ story in the off-season chronicled how Young gave up a steady diet of chicken fingers and pizza while adding 15 pounds of muscle during training in California.
Still, the 6-6, 218-pound Doncic will cast a sizable shadow over Young’s progression through the league. He’ll always be the player the Hawks could have had – in fact, did have for a precious few seconds. Meaning Young’s career here will be measured regularly in comparison to Doncic’s. They are now competing brand names, like Ford and Chevy.
Young is not arguing the point.
Neither will he be haunted by it, he said.
“I’m not going to let that affect me,” he said.
“I know if I’m taking care of my business and we’re winning and we’re doing what we need to do, then no one is going to care about that.”
That’s one difference he’ll do his best to ignore.
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