NBA rookie drops stats not seen since Steph Curry
Basketball fans have been left gobsmacked after Atlanta’s Trae Young put up the best set of rookie stats since three-time NBA champion, Steph Curry.
Games like Young’s extraordinary performance against Cleveland might be why the Hawks traded back and scooped up Young at the 2018 NBA draft, rather than sticking with Luka Doncic with the third overall pick.
In just the third game of his NBA career, the point guard posted the first 30-point game of this year’s NBA rookie class against the Cavaliers.
Young ended up finishing with 35 points on 13-of-23 shooting with 11 assists in 38 minutes, all of them team-leading marks.
Thanks to Young’s effort, the Hawks set a franchise record with 22 three-pointers in a 133-111 upset win against the Cavaliers on the road. It was the Hawks’ first win of the season.
The incredible performance left fans in a spin on social media, with many predicting a huge future for the 20-year-old.
My goodness Trae Young put in work tonight.
— JJ (@PlaymakerJJ) October 22, 2018
I was admittedly the biggest Trae Young hater when we took him. If he keeps it up like this I will gladly admit I am wrong https://t.co/rYdZ2MfdM3
— Trent Wade (@JamesTWade) October 22, 2018
Trae Young is the REAL DEAL
— BLAKE THE ASSASSIN (@hotwings1024) October 22, 2018
Trae Young went off tonight he making it look easy out there
— IDecided (@MAC_LOVIN_) October 22, 2018
Trae young gonna win the mvp one day remember this tweet
— Joe Dunn™ (@joedunn209) October 22, 2018
Highlights from Trae Young’s first big NBA game
Young got it started early against the Cavs, dropping 18 points in a fiery second quarter that left the Hawks up 64-60 heading into halftime. In total, he had 21 points in the first half, topping his high for a game from his first two NBA outings.
Young kept it going in the second half, showing off the deep three-point range that earned him widespread comparisons to Curry during his college career at Oklahoma.
The 20-year-old’s big performance should also have been even sweeter given who he was facing, specifically the other highly touted rookie point guard in the game, Collin Sexton.
However, the eighth overall pick in the 2018 draft and the second point guard taken, came up a bit short compared to Young. The Alabama product posted only four points on 2-of-11 shooting.
Trae Young equals Stephen Curry milestone
As it turns out, Young’s performance added up to a stat line that very much validated some of the Curry comparisons.
Trae Young tonight:
35 PTS
11 ASTSLast rookie with 35 PTS/10 ASTS in a game: Stephen Curry (35 PTS/10 ASTS on 3/13/10, 36 PTS/13 ASTS on 2/10/10) pic.twitter.com/QZAvTKR5KG
— NBA.com/Stats (@nbastats) October 22, 2018
More to come from Trae Young?
Even with his struggles in the latter part of last season with Oklahoma, Young led the entire NCAA in points and assists per game for a reason, and he showed part of that against the Cavs.
At his best, Young is a free-shooting, pinpoint-passing delight with astonishing court vision, range and aggression. He was on pace for quite possibly the best freshman season in NCAA history until defenses started keying in on him to an absurd degree, causing Oklahoma to eventually crater. Young settled for leading the league in several categories and raking in All-American honors.
Concerns about his frame and how well his freewheeling style would translate to the NBA caused Young to fall just outside of consideration for the draft’s top selections, and those concerns had some people uneasy during an uneven Summer League campaign in which Young averaged 17 points per game on 38 percent shooting.
However, Young is now averaging 23 points and 8.3 assists in his young NBA career. Of course, that’s in only three games against the very subpar competition of the Cavaliers, Grizzlies and Knicks. But just the fact that Young is posting Curry-esque lines like this at only 19 years old has to be very encouraging news for the Hawks.
With Yahoo Sports US