Young Featured In Lowe's "10 Things"

Trae Young appeared in Zach Lowe’s first “10 Things I Like and Don’t Like” column Friday morning for his crafty ball-handling and improved trajectory he seems to be on this season. Lowe specifically noted Young’s ability to dust defenders by rejecting screens – leveraging an opponent’s anticipation of the pick-and-roll against them and darting the other way. Young loves crossing over left-to-right, either into pull-up 3s or drives into the lane, and when defenders allow him access to it he exploits their positioning like few point guards can.

“Young senses that anxiety and preys on it by faking toward screens and then bolting the other way,” Lowe writes. “He is rejecting about nine picks per 100 possessions, double his rate from last season, per Second Spectrum, and defenders are falling for the gambit over and over.”

A few more numbers that stand out from the piece: the Hawks score roughly 1.7 points per possession when Young rejects screens, according to Second Spectrum tracking data (that is a preposterously high figure); Atlanta’s offense has been solid – 110 points per 100 possessions – with Young on the floor and scored “a Washington Generals-esque” 92 points per 100 when he isn’t, per Lowe’s research.

Lowe also dug into the symbiosis between Young’s pick-and-roll orchestration and the rest of his game. He’ll split double-teams when opponents trap him, and his jumper has fallen more consistently than it did last year. “From there, Young can start manipulating instead of reacting. He can scan the floor, then digest which four or five passing options might emerge depending on his plan of attack and choose one. He is a world-class passer with either hand.”

Turnovers will continue to be an issue for Young, who handles the ball constantly, and he could take a few games to get back into rhythm after a sprained ankle. Still, he is building a case as an All Star, and earning some recognition for it.