I caught a few clips of him launching dumb shots back in January and thought that this guy was just the first of many "Next Curry" wannabe chuckers (just like we had a large influx of "Next Jordan" iso-chuckers back in the late 90s and early 2000s). Turns out that Trae Young is in fact an extremely advanced playmaker. I think that his passing ability is far superior to even Doncic (who is himself a potentially generational playmaker). Transition offense: Orchestrating things nicely in the half-court:
The Curry comparison has always been a little off. I don't think he'll ever be the offensive threat Curry is because...quite frankly, Curry is the best shooter to ever play basketball and if you want to argue that then I guess your other option is his friggin douche teammate Klay...anyway...plus I don't know if he has that handle like Irving/Curry to just create space out of nowhere and drain it in your face...but his game reminds me more of Nash. Elite playmaker that you never want to leave open for 3 which will of course help his playmaking ability. I mean that's still a favorable comparison seeing that Nash was a 2x MVP. Nash is also Young's favorite player and who he models himself after so there you go.
A pg that can catch and shoot while dishing out assists and playing decent defense!!! Sign me up ,he can only get better.
The early returns are in: Best passer of his draft class by a fecking mile. Probably a top 3 passer in the NBA already. What is quite impressive is his mastery of the half-court offense at such a young age:
from what i've seen doncic is a great opportunistic/sneaky passer while young is a great playmaker every time down. right now it's really close for me between these two potential-wise. doncic has the size and clutch gene, while young has the quickness and playmaking ability. will be great to see how these guys develop 5yrs from now
Doncic is top five in potential assist and much worse in actual assists numbers than Young. Luka moving his head and looking around is enough to shift the defense and make defenders move. Wade said LeBron's passes are the only ones who can compare to Luka's. And last but not least, Luka is much taller and can see over the defense, which Young can't. As someone who's seen lots of games from both Luka and Trae, I can say Trae is more disciplined and consistent passer right now, which you can partly contribute to Trae's better teammates, while Luka is a more gifted passer.
Overall passer/playmaker? I think it's close. Overall player? Not close at all. Trae will always be a massive defensive liability. Doncic is already a decent defender if he's not getting ISO'ed by Kyrie Irving or Donovan Mitchell etc. ... but we knew all of this information prior to the draft, it's nothing new.
Trae Young can get to any spots on the court at will while Doncic at this stage can't. Great vision is not of much use if you can't get to those spots to make them count (see Lonzo). Trae Young is third in potential assist (second in the last fifteen games) while leading the league in assist at the rim and at the corner three. Guess him not being able to look over the defense (which is silly in itself as arguably only Jokic operates in this way) does not impede him. Also Trae Young averaging more assists is not a function of his teammates being good (they are mostly trash outside of John Collins who missed the first part of the campaign) but of the quality of his looks (at the rim and wide open corner threes). While Doncic will always be a better scorer than Young (much better finisher at the rim) he is absolutely not a better playmaker than the guy who is second in total assist in the whole NBA. And this difference is entirely due to Youngs ability to manipulate defenses by penetrating.
In no way or form is Doncic a decent defender. He is currently better than Young; that's all. As for playmaking ability, that's not very close at all. The only area whe5e Doncic is far superior and will likely always be so is in scoring ability against length, which I agree is kind of a big deal.
anderson already efficiently shredded those arguments, but i just have to highlight the obvious bias on one of those -- ATL has had a better supporting cast than DAL? whaaaaat?
He is though. A defensive sieve wouldn't be able to do this: Or this: Or this: Again.... I'm not saying he's an elite defender or anything close to that. He's decent. How is it not very close at all? Doncic is a really good playmaker. He can create out of thin air. .... .... Honestly, I feel some bias in your posts. Did Luka sleep with your mom or something?
Projection much? Something you wanna confess? Is Luka truly your daddy? Also, how am I biased againts Doncic when I said he projects to be a much better scorer than Young ( He is currently averaging 21 ppg compared to 18 ppg for young on slightly better efficiency) ? Doncic can't defend in space as he just seems to have awkward footwork; teams have noticed and are more and more forcing a switch to exploit this. He is at this point a perimeter player who can't guard other perimeter players on the perimeter which explains his sinking advanced metrics on defense since the turn of the year. As for playmaking, how is that currently close? Young is second in the NBA in total assists while playing on the HAWKS. And there is a simple explanation for this difference in playmaking ability: Young can get anywhere on the court; no one can stay in front of him (which is surprising as coming into the draft, Young's first step was considered sub-par. That's probably the first time I have seen a player improves his first step so quickly.). In fact many of his assist at the rim is the direct result of him penetrating and distorting the defense, which Luka just can't.
