It happened again Monday afternoon — a Trae Young play that drives opposing players and coaches crazy. So much so that a few weeks ago it was brought up to the NBA’s Competition Committee in discussions about what can be done to stop it.
On this particular play, De’Andre Hunter initially made contact with Malik Beasley on the screen. Young sprinted to Clint Capela at the top of the key as soon as it happened, and the ball was handed to Young. Capela slipped the screen, making Beasley chase Young from behind, which is exactly where the Hawks’ guard wanted him. Naz Reid was in the paint and in front of Young but got trapped by his decision-making. If Reid closed on Young, the point guard would just have an easy lob to Capela for an alley-oop.
Now watch what happened.
Young jumped in the air and drew contact with Beasley, who was incensed that he was called for a foul. He imitated Young’s motion to the referee, as he jumped in the air and exaggerated Young sticking his butt out to draw the foul. Beasley’s complaint didn’t matter. Young headed to the line for two free throws (in this case, he missed one of them).
Advertisement
Young has established himself as one of the NBA’s leaders in drawing fouls. He has been fouled on 17.2 percent of his shot attempts and 3.7 percent on non-shooting plays — both marks are above the 90th percentile, according to Cleaning The Glass. He’s second in the league in free-throw attempts per game (9.7, one-tenth of a percentage point behind Giannis Antetokounmpo) and shooting 89 percent from the line. The Hawks lead the league in free-throw rate partly because of Young’s success at drawing fouls.
But it’s the stop-jump foul that he has mastered that is driving opponents crazy.
“It works really well for me because I’m able to score so well off the pick-and-roll, and now with the people we’ve added this year, it’s hard to help off shooters,” Young said on Jan. 6. “The guy who is guarding me has to fight over the screen and can’t go under the screen. When you go over a screen, you have to fight quick and hard. There’s times when I get over a screen and get downhill, and there are times when our big man will slip out, and the defender will run right into me. That’s just something you learn with instincts over time.
“There’s times where I do it, and it’s just my instincts. When you feel the momentum of the defender fighting over screens — it’s hard for a fan to really realize how close the defender is to me on the screen. With his momentum, I can feel them moving forward. So, for me, it’s not that I’m jumping back. I’m really just stopping, playing where I’m at and going straight up, which is what I’m allowed to do. Their momentum carries into me, and that’s what happens.”
Young grew up watching video on some of the other smaller guards across the league, such as Chris Paul and Steve Nash, and studied what they did to draw contact and get to the line. Nash was never a big foul drawer, and Paul was always above average, particularly in his early years, but they had tricks they used to get to the line.
Advertisement
As a smaller guard, Young said there are different moves he has to use in order to have some advantages over the bigger, stronger players he has to go against. One of the reasons why he shoots deep 3s is because as a freshman in high school, he was one of the smallest players and consistently would have his shots blocked, so he had to shoot farther away from the basket and thus opposing players. It’s also why he has worked extensively on his floater. Because he can’t freely drive and penetrate the paint all of the time, he has to get to his floater before he meets the rim protector.
When microphones caught Nash three weeks ago screaming to a ref, “That’s not basketball! That’s not basketball!” Young smirked because Nash was his favorite player growing up, and he took some of his moves from the Nets’ coach.
"That's not basketball" – Steve Nash
Trae Young was drawing cheap fouls and Steve Nash was tired of seeing it, not being able to do anything about it. Coach Nash had to have a word with this ref. Talk heavy coach. #WeGoHard – @Keith_McPherson pic.twitter.com/tMEbkSD6Ga
— Talkin’ Nets (@TalkinNets) December 31, 2020
“I saw that it blew up and everyone was talking about it,” Young said of Nash’s comments. “I bet if I was playing for Steve, he’d be happy. It’s something in the midst of competition that he was wanting to win, and I was wanting to win, and I’m gonna do whatever it takes. I think him wanting to get in the refs’ ears a little bit was just trying to help him. I learned a lot about drawing fouls from him. If he says it’s not basketball, he must’ve been saying it about himself because he’s done it a couple of times throughout his career and was so successful.”
Two days after Nash was incensed that Young shot 16 free throws against the Nets, Nash was more complimentary of Young’s ability to get to the line. It should be noted that before Nash became Brooklyn’s coach this offseason, Nash and Young had a mentor-mentee-type of relationship, with the two working out together.
“He’s gotten incredibly clever,” Nash said on Jan. 1. “He took a big jump from last year to this year at drawing contact and recognizing situations where he can draw contact to deceive the opponent. It’s impressive, and he’s done really well. He’s getting to the line at a league-leading rate. I’m impressed, and I think it’s a real skill he’s developed.”
Nash wasn’t the only coach who was annoyed with Young’s foul-drawing techniques. New York Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau expressed his curiosity about Young getting these calls. When the Hawks played the Knicks, Young used the jump-stop move, and Austin Rivers picked up a shooting foul.
“It’s interesting,” Thibodeau said. “I watched the Brooklyn games, and I saw it. Obviously, there’s been that trend. It started with (James) Harden where the league is protecting the shooters, and it’s interesting having coached internationally in FIBA. They don’t give players those calls. We have to concentrate on our body positioning, keep our hands back and be disciplined.”
Advertisement
Young doesn’t believe what he’s doing is skating the rules — he’s using them to his advantage, he says. And, he’s right. The play is legal, according to the rulebook. Young said he has made it a point to know the specific rules for what on-ball defenders can and can’t do in order to try to stop him. If the ref believes Young is jumping straight up and not sticking his behind out and his defender runs up his back, which is the result of stopping short, it should simply be called a foul.
The way for defenses to stop this would be either switching with a big man or having that big man hedge. This still presents a situation that’s more favorable for Young than the opposing teams because of what Young said about that strategy. He’s so good at scoring and facilitating off of pick-and-roll that it’s a damned if you do and damned if you don’t scenario. In either situation, Young gets what he wants.
“It’s one of those things where for years James Harden has been the guy in the league where we teach hands back, hands out,” Hawks coach Lloyd Pierce said. “We say it often. It’s literally a coverage for us when we’re playing James. The discipline to defend him — I think Patty Mills does it the absolute best in the league at getting his hands back and his hands out. James can still seek out contact. Until someone can figure it out, that’s on them. It’s just one of those things where you hate it when you’re defending it and love it when you have it, and we have it.”
Since the Nets game during which Nash expressed his frustration, there was a stretch when Young wasn’t getting to the line as much — outside of the 15 free throws he shot against the Knicks. He had six games when he had six or fewer free-throw attempts; he attempted at least 14 free throws in each of the Hawks’ first four games.
Young hasn’t used the jump stop move as often as he did prior to Nash’s comments. There have certainly been a few instances the past few weeks when the refs have swallowed their whistles and have been more cautious in calling a foul, but Pierce believes there are deeper reasons.
“For the most part, he’s gotten into the paint and is looking to attack,” Pierce said. “He isn’t seeking out as many pull-up 3s as we’re used to. I think there are good reasons. He’s getting off the ball a lot quicker. He’s getting the ball to guys that are open a lot easier. He’s just not in the same positions to use the stop-and-pop as we’ve seen in the past. You take the negative of that and make it a good thing. Kevin (Huerter) hits a corner 3 (Monday) because they’re showing more of a crowd to Trae and Kevin is wide open. Easily, he could seek out some contact and put guys in a tough spot, but the simple play was the corner 3. It isn’t an officiating thing. He’s doing a tremendous job of getting our guys involved.”
Even with Young in the middle of an offensive drought we haven’t seen from him since his early rookie year days, he has proven what he can do on that end of the floor when he’s in the zone. It’s just a matter of time until he’s back smiling after upsetting an opposing player with a move he has perfected.
Advertisement
“In the midst of it, everyone thinks I’m doing something different where I’m doing jumping backwards or doing whatever and it’s not a legal play,” Young said. “There’s things they say where they don’t believe it’s a legal play. I know it’s legal.
“When it frustrates a team that badly that you can’t stop it, it’s gratifying. I know it’s frustrating for opposing teams but it’s good for our team and that’s all that matters to me.”
(Photo by Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)
