Trae Young, the freshman All-American at the University of Oklahoma has announced that he will enter the June NBA draft.
The move hardly comes as a surprise after a season in which he led the nation in assists (271), points (848), points per game (27.4), assists per game (8.7), and assist percentage (48.6%).
His 811 points scored in the Big 12 set a new conference’s record for most points scored by a freshman player, which was previously held by Kevin Durant and Michael Beasley.
Young also won the Wayman Tisdale Award for National Freshman of the Year by the United States Basketball Writers Association (USBWA) and the Big 12’s Freshman of the Year Award. He was also a member of the All-Big 12’s First Team and an All-American First Team member by both the Sporting News and the USBWA.
Young, who is expected to be a top-10 pick, has had a meteoric rise for a player who was not among the top guards in the country at the start of the season.
His career year has catapulted him into comparisons with Stephen Curry. He is a very skilled player, a playmaker and a shooter with a lot of potential that isn’t afraid to take shots from anywhere on the court.
His talents intrigue a lot of NBA teams and will most likely end up being a lottery pick. Despite all the accolades his college experience wasn’t all good as he struggled for a good stretch of the season and the Sooners lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament after losing 11 of their final 15 regular season games.
Despite all those setbacks, Young is sure this is the right time to enter the draft. He was determined in his decision of joining the NBA because he believes that all the adversity that he faced in college and the many different defenses he played against have hardened him and only helped to prepare him better for the pros.
He will now think about getting into training to get his body stronger to be ready to better endure the physicality of the NBA.
