Five All-Star games, two MVP awards, two NBA rings, one-time NBA scoring champion and more than 2,100 three-point shots made and counting, all that before turning 30-years old.
When looking at those numbers is easy to understand why Golden State’s Stephen Curry is a revolutionary player that changed the NBA forever with his long-range shooting ability.
But now there’s a new player in the NCAA that looks like he has the perfect combination of skills to follow Curry’s path: Oklahoma Sooners guard Trae Young.
Young may not be Curry yet, but he definitely is Curry-esque as he has ridiculous handling, tremendous vision, and unlimited range.
He’s a player that as soon as he steps his foot over half-court will shoot the ball without fear because he has a shooter’s mentality and the range to do it and is reminding a lot of people of Steph Curry when he was at Davidson during his college years.
Young has a similar release on his shot, can shoot close to the logo, and is scoring almost 30 points a game as a 19-year-old freshman in the competitive Big 12.
Players like Young are anomalies and we haven’t seen someone like him at the college level since perhaps Curry, as he has the ability to razzle-dazzle his opponents with his dribble and has proven up to this point to be entertainment waiting to happen.
It’s only fitting to wonder what his ceiling can be and what can the NBA game look like with a generation producing players like Young who are craving to follow Curry’s path. A generation that is shooting and making three-point shots from places on the floor previously unknown.
Just like Curry has developed in front of the cameras and become an elite-caliber player now Trae Young has a blueprint to follow, almost in the same way that Kobe Bryant did with Michael Jordan.
Young already has an NBA skill set with the long-range shooting ability, he can break defenders off the dribble and get to the lane before others and can finish at the rim with authority.
In college, almost nobody shoots from that deep and even in the NBA, there are just a couple of guys that shoot from that range so it’s evident that he’s been doing this a lot even from his high-school days.
The NBA game is using long threes and layups with increasing frequency and that is probably not going to change anytime soon. Curry’s success is undoubtedly the biggest reason why the NBA game is using long-range shooting now more than ever before and why more and more players try to follow his footsteps. The catch is that just a few gifted ones, like Young, succeed at it.
