Trae Young has been called small throughout his life. In high school, “he’s too little” chants would echo the gym. Those continued throughout his college career, and they’ve gotten even louder in the NBA.
Knicks fans are all too familiar with how Young has learned to quiet those taunts. During Game 1 of the 2021 Eastern Conference Finals, he received an inbounds pass with 9.8 left to go in a tie game. He drove the ball 60 feet, dropped in a teardrop floater over the arms of Julius Randle and put a finger to his lips to shush a stunned Madison Square Garden crowd.
“I’ve been working on my floater since I was a kid,” Young told ESPN’s Malika Andrews a few weeks later. “Not being the biggest guy coming into the league, I was going to need a floater. I’ve been working on it since middle school.”
Growing up, Young practiced that shot by launching the ball over a broomstick held up by his father, Ray. Now, it’s become (literally) the driving force behind his three All-Star appearances and gaudy career averages of 25.2 points and 9.7 assists per game. He knows how much his game centers around that shot.
The floater is important to me obviously..😂🙏🏽 https://t.co/OUpz241kX7
— Trae Young (@TheTraeYoung) September 28, 2023
Young has even playfully addressed the fact he’s hit over 1,000 floaters and has zero dunks in his NBA career.
A bucket is a bucket.. don’t forget that kids https://t.co/q0RtLPN3Cg
— Trae Young (@TheTraeYoung) March 19, 2024
What makes that shot so devastating? Here’s what teammates, opponents and coaches have to say.
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Why Trae Young’s floater is impossible to guard
Young came into the league with great touch on his floater. Per Cleaning the Glass, his 46 percent shooting on floater-range shots as a rookie ranked in the top 89 percentile of players.
That shot has actually fallen to a career-low 40 percent in a down offensive season for him in 2024-25, but he has regained his touch over the past two weeks at the same time that the Hawks have turned their season around.
During a stretch where Atlanta has won seven of eight, including an impressive win against New York in the quarterfinals of the NBA Cup, Young has hit 50 percent (17-of-34) of his floaters. He used it to shred the Knicks’ defense, and that shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise.
Karl-Anthony Towns has been one of the worst rim protectors in the league this season, allowing opponents to shoot 67.9 percent from within six feet of the basket, per NBA Stats. Towns had no chance against Young’s floater, particularly given the Knicks’ scheme.
“You can’t be in a drop versus Trae,” Clippers coach Ty Lue told Sporting News last season. “You’ve got to be up to touch if you’re not blitzing.”
Towns was in that drop defense for much of Wednesday’s loss, waiting for Young near the paint rather than coming up to meet him higher up the floor. That allowed Young to get downhill and release his floater.
Add in Towns’ extremely poor rim protection, and these were easy gimmes:
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Drop is still a very common defensive scheme to guard pick-and-rolls across the league. What makes it not viable against Young, even with good rim protectors? Giving him that much space on his drives allows him to play the cat-and-mouse game no big man can stop. Once he gets momentum toward the rim, the battle has already been lost.
“Make sure he’s not getting downhill, getting into that pocket and getting that floater off,” Lue advised. “Because it’s either a lob or a floater, and he does such a good job of disguising which one it is.”
Young’s release on his floater is indistinguishable from the one on his lob passes. That creates a massive headache for centers, and the near-automatic points from those lobs are what really makes that floater so dangerous.
NBA QUIZ: Wanna know how hard it is to guard Trae? Put yourself in the position of a defensive big. They have fractions of a second to decide if these are floaters or lobs.
I’ll give you four seconds to see if you can do better. pic.twitter.com/uZxmkXE79D
— Steph Noh (@StephNoh) December 13, 2024
“You just gotta pick your poison,” Clippers center Ivica Zubac told Sporting News last season. “If you step up, he’s going to throw that lob. If you don’t, he’s gonna shoot the floater. If he throws it on time, it’s hard to tell what’s coming.”
“You gotta get in his head a little bit, make him think about it. That’s the only thing you can really do. Once he gets downhill, it’s usually too late.”
Young is so good at hiding his intentions that he can even confuse his lob partners. The solution for them? Always jump.
“I need to always stay ready. I just jump,” Hawks center Clint Capela told Sporting News.
MORE: How Trae Young became Knicks fans’ newest villain
When Capela does get juked out by Young, good things can still happen. “Sometimes I can also get a rebound, get a tip-in.”
Young even regularly tricks broadcasting teams. In the waning moments of Wednesday’s NBA Cup semifinal game, he shook free from the defense and bee-lined towards Towns.
“And Trae Young, the floater up,” announcer Mike Breen told the viewing audience. “No!” Breen corrected as he saw Capela dunking the ball. “Another alley-oop!”
Young didn’t shush the New York crowd this time. Instead, he mimicked rolling a pair of dice on the Knicks logo, letting the crowd know that the Hawks would be on their way to Las Vegas to face the Bucks on Saturday.
Young’s floater will present a fascinating challenge for Brook Lopez, who prefers to play in a drop. Lopez will have to gamble in Sin City, guessing if it’s the lob or the floater coming. If he and his teammates place losing bets often enough, the Hawks will continue their storybook run straight to the Cup finals.
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