1. Hawks vs Wizards; January 26, 2020
Trae Young’s best game of the season came in the wake of the season’s most shocking loss, a tragedy that stretched out and touched far too many lives. On the same day that Kobe Bryant and seven others, including his daughter Gianna Bryant, were killed in a helicopter crash in California, Trae Young had arguably his best game.
On January 26, 2020, against the Washington Wizards, Young posted his best game-score (39.4) of the coronavirus-shortened season and punctuated his performance with a Hawks victory. Young’s line on the day: 45 points, 6 rebounds, 14 assists and one steal, while shooting 13-of-24 from the field, 6-of-11 from three and 13-of-16 from the free throw line.
Life is more important than basketball, something we’ve had too many reminders of this season. It can be trite to link a tragedy with a herculean sports performance, but in this case, it seems apt. Young was a fan of Kobe and friends with Gianna. Young was Gianna’s favorite NBA player and she and Kobe, attached at the hip as they were, were court-side in Atlanta twice this season.
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Trae Young lost an idol and a friend. He could be seen crying on his mother’s shoulder before the game. Nevertheless, Young decided to play, choosing to honor Kobe in the way Kobe so often honored the game and awed us—with a virtuosic performance.
Young’s performance included a little bit of everything. After a steal on a failed Wizards full-court pass with 3.8 seconds left in the first half, he hit a 3-point heave from just behind the half-court line. Buoyed by the Wizards porous defense, Young was able to consistently maneuver his way into the paint.
He shot 54.2 percent from the field, 54.5 percent from three, and finished +22 in his minutes. When he wasn’t draining threes, he was diming up teammates out of soft traps in the pick-and-roll. When he wasn’t dishing out assists, he was finishing with floaters himself and when he wasn’t doing that he was drawing fouls and knocking down free-throws. It was a well-rounded dismantling, one I imagine Kobe would have been proud of.