Photo Credit: Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports

Trae Young Says He’ll Pass Stephen Curry As The NBA’s Best Shooter In A Year

Trae Young is one of the most exciting players in the NBA right now. The flashy passes, the long-range bombs and the nutmegs — Trae Young’s arsenal of moves often draws loud oohs and ahhs from the crowds. Young is also making a case for one of the best offensive players in the league right now. He’s already averaging 29.6 points and 9.3 assists per game so far this year.

He already was an All-Star starter and has achieved quite a few stat-breaking records in what only is his sophomore year. Young has been achieving goals for himself and he has no signs of stopping.

It seems he has set a huge goal for him to achieve in the future, and that is to become the best shooter in the NBA. In an appearance on Shaquille O’Neal’s podcast, Trae was asked how many years it would take for him to pass Stephen Curry as the best shooter in the NBA, and Trae responded with “a year”.

Trae Young says he'll pass Steph Curry as the best shooter in the NBA in a year. pic.twitter.com/qq1b1SYECB

— Chris Montano (@gswchris) April 5, 2020

If we’re going to compare the two in their first two seasons, you’ll see that Trae has been averaging 23.6 points, 8.6 assists per game on 42.8% FG, 34.4% 3PT on 7.4 attempts per game and 84.7% from the charity stripe. Meanwhile, Steph in his first two seasons, had averaged 18 points and 5.9 assists on 47% FG, 43.9% 3PT on 4.7 attempts per game and 91.1% from the line. 

At the first two years of their careers, we could argue that Trae Young is the better player by the numbers. He has more volume but Steph was more efficient. However, we have to understand that Curry wasn’t even the focal of his team’s offense in those years. Nevertheless, let’s give this nod to Trae as a head start.

But we should take a deeper look at Curry’s career. Unlike Trae who is shooting under 40% from three for his career, Curry has never shot under 40% from 3-point range ever. Curry also never shot worse than 45% from the field. Meanwhile, Trae in both his two years has made less than 45% of his field goals —41.8% in his first year and 43.7% this year. 

Trae Young might be averaging amazing numbers and is able to shoot from the parking lot anytime he wants, but Curry combines efficiency with volume. In his early years, Steph might not have shot as much as Trae, but when he did later on, his efficiency didn’t even take a hit. Trae can do what Steph does in terms of volume, but he can’t do it at the same efficiency as Steph (yet?). 

A year to pass Curry as the best shooter in the NBA? Nice mentality, but kind of ridiculous.

Trae always gets compared to the likes of Steve Nash and Stephen Curry. Nash was more of a traditional point guard who didn’t score as much and lived off of making plays for his teammates. Meanwhile, Curry is more of a scoring guard, running through screens for a catch-and-shoot and taking players on deep pick-and-rolls to attack.

Both Curry and Nash are small guards who perfected the 3-point shot, while combining their shooting with flashy passing to break defenses—the same as to what Trae Young is doing right now.