ESPN DATE: 02/10/2021 The audacity of Trae Young By: Jackie MacMullan https://www.espn.com/nba/insider/story/_/id/30847551/the-audacity-trae-young HE WAS SO slight, at first they didn't even notice him sliding through to the front of the line. Trae Young, all of 120 pounds, just weeks removed from eighth-grade graduation, firmly planted himself in front of 6-foot-3, 270-pound Norman North High School basketball captain Payton Prince as if he had assumed his rightful position in the basketball hemisphere. "It was pretty shocking," Prince says now. "I'm thinking, 'Who the hell does this kid think he is?'" Bryan Merritt was new to town in the summer of 2013. Set to coach the Norman North basketball team in the fall, he thought it wise to gather some players for an informal workout, asking around who he should invite. Merritt was told there was a boy brimming with potential and ambition, who could sink shots from 30 feet and exhibited a knack for deftly hitting players in stride with no-look passes that startled both the defense and the recipient. The kid was small, precocious and immature, but everyone said Trae Young was definitely worth a look. Now here he was, 14 years old, at his first team gathering, challenging its unwritten hierarchy with a stunning swath of bravado. Prince, who had signed with Tulsa and would go on to play defensive tackle there, vacillated between amused and annoyed. He shoved Young out of the way. "Back of the line," he barked. The kid grudgingly obliged, but it was not the last time he would stride to the front to stake his claim. To the surprise and consternation of the players, Young was at it again the very next day, jockeying to the front. Young insists this is how his journey needed to unfold. "When you're my size, it's how you have to roll to be respected," Young says. "Whenever I played with older guys, I wanted to fit in. And, once I did that, I wanted to stand out. "To do that, sometimes you need to do things that are uncomfortable." Young has demonstrated adeptness in such moments. The 22-year-old supernova for the Atlanta Hawks unabashedly orchestrates the game he loves with his own flair, be it a lefty, 20-foot no-look bounce pass in transition, or one of those 38-foot bombs he unleashes just after he crosses half court. These flashes of brilliance -- and presumption -- are rooted in his insatiable thirst to prove he belongs, delighting some and infuriating others. "That chip," says Atlanta Hawks coach Lloyd Pierce. "Trae carries it everywhere. You have to take the good with the bad. I was with Joel Embiid when he was the same way. For both of those guys, everything is some form of competition." Young looked like a child alongside the burly high-school upperclassmen, many of them football stars moonlighting as basketball players. He struggled in the first two months, but Merritt could see the wheels turning. He learned of Young's 5:30 a.m. conditioning regimen that included running the stadium steps before school, of the film sessions with his father to absorb the nuances of Jason Kidd and Steve Nash, the post-practice shooting tutorials at the YMCA. "No one," Merritt says, "can ever question whether Trae has worked for it." But after each triumph, the lament was always the same: "What a shame he's so small." Young grew to loathe the words "plucky" and "tenacious." He was more than that, and he would show everyone. From Norman North to the University of Oklahoma to the Atlanta Hawks, Young's peers have come to understand that he's an acquired taste. And as he continues his NBA ascent, a question persists: Does his brashness need to be tempered for the greater good? "My son is no angel," says his father, Rayford Young. "He does rub a lot of people the wrong way, including guys he plays with." "I promise you, when Trae was 16 years old, even if Kevin Durant walked in the gym, he'd swear he could beat him," Merritt says. "That's how he's gotten this far. "But sometimes all that confidence hits people wrong. So, how are you going to be that way without putting people off? He's going to have to work on that forever." "ICE TRAE" MATERIALIZES when Young is really feeling it. When he banked a late-game 3 over Markelle Fultz last season, there was the signature "shiver." Then there was the time he drained a long trey over then-Lakers guard Lonzo Ball, pointing to the spot in case Ball didn't fully comprehend his range. Trae Young drains a deep 3-pointer over Lonzo Ball and points to the floor. In 2019, Denver Nuggets wing Will Barton fell victim to a nutmeg when Young poked his dribble between Barton's legs, retrieved it, launched a soft fallaway, then turned and stared down the Nuggets bench. Trae Young nutmegs Will Barton for the baseline jumper and then proceeds to stare down the Nuggets bench. Young's father was the one who told him never to back down from anybody, but sometimes his son's boldness emits an involuntary wince. "I talk to him about it," Rayford Young says. "I want him to stay healthy. I don't want anyone to cheap- shot him. He tells me, 'Dad, I'm fine. This is part of my game.'" In his third season playing with Young, John Collins has observed Young slither under opponents' skin in myriad ways, including cleverly initiating contact and drawing fouls (Young averages 10.5 free throws a game). "He has a Harden-esque ability to do that," Collins notes. Hawks coach Lloyd Pierce makes the salient point that if a star doesn't have a tinge of arrogance, he'll be swallowed whole in the league. This is especially true when one stands barely over 6 feet tall. Young discussed this with Kobe Bryant, and the Black Mamba told him there were two types of players: lions and sheep. "Be a lion," Bryant advised Young. Last spring, the Hawks were engaged in post-bubble workouts when Young and back-up point guard Brandon Goodwin began trading barbs. It started with aggressive defense, some choice words, then a flurry of physical fouls, and then, suddenly, the two shoved each other and appeared prepared to trade blows. They were quickly separated before full-blown fisticuffs ensued. "We were in it," Young says. "That's the intensity our team needs." "He was being super aggressive," Goodwin recalls. "I gained a lot of respect for Trae after that. He wasn't rattled at all. When we started playing again, he immediately hit the next shot and just stared me down. I was like, 'OK.' "After practice, we dapped and forgot all about it," Young says. "You won't find a bigger fan of BG than me." "Trae had that macho attitude, 'I can get the next shot.' I tried to calm him down, tell him this was a good time to use the other four guys on the floor. He'd nod, then come down and take a 30- footer."Former Oklahoma assistant Chris Crutchfield Veteran Rajon Rondo chuckles when told of the encounter. He signed with Atlanta to serve, in part, as a mentor to Young. He, too, was once an undersized guard in a hurry to be great, unapologetically challenging everyone in his path. "Trae is able to get anywhere on the floor he wants," Rondo says, "but what we've been talking about is getting the ball to the right spot when the game is on the line. I admire the growth I've seen. He's getting more comfortable with not having to make every play himself." Young acknowledges his tunnel vision, and the intensity that accompanies it. With each passing NBA season, he says, he's considering how to appease the needs and wants of his teammates. "Not everyone thinks the way I do," Young says. "I'm learning how to adjust and adapt to different people. But there's one thing I hope my teammates all understand. There's two different people in me: the basketball version and the personal version. "The basketball version is willing to do whatever it takes to win. Sometimes, that will come along with controversy. I want to bring out the best in everybody and I hope they will bring out the best in me. The teammates who understand that are the ones I'm closest with." Collins is on that list. His exchange with Young during a recent film session regarding delivering the ball to the proper spots was leaked to the media, even though each insists it was an honest, collaborative conversation. Pierce dismisses the tension that day as a common NBA occurrence that ignites productive dialogue. "I embrace confrontation," Pierce says. "It promotes growth." Rayford says the closeness between his son and Collins enabled them to be direct in giving on-court feedback. "But that's not going to work with everyone," he says. "When vets like Taurean Prince played with Trae, they were like, 'Hey, what's your deal?'" THE DEAL IS that as an 8-year-old, Young hugged his father and informed him that he was going to Texas Tech to break all his records. Rayford was also a smallish guard who scored 1,525 career points. He met his wife, Candice, at Texas Tech, and by his senior year, 2-year-old Trae Young sat happily in his mom's lap, decked out in Red Raiders gear, clapping for daddy.