Tuesday 5 May 2020 09:22, UK
Atlanta Hawks point guard Trae Young said two-time MVP Steve Nash was his favourite player growing up and remains his basketball idol today.
Young joined Inside The NBA host Ernie Johnson for an NBA Together online event on Monday night, with the 2018-19 Rookie of the Year runner-up discussing his favourite players and mentors, coping with lockdown and what he described as his "embarrassing" loss in the recent NBA HORSE competition.
"Steve Nash, Chris Paul, a lot of those guys are my mentors today still. Nash was my favourite player growing up. I loved watching him. He has been my idol since I started playing basketball," Young said.
"I knew I wasn't going to be the biggest person in the world. Steve wasn't the biggest person either but he had a big impact on the game. He could really score, pass with both hands. That drew me very close to Steve. At my size, I thought I could be similar - that's what made me gravitate to him. He controlled the game and he controlled the pace. He is one of the best point guards of all time, for sure."
Hawks head coach, Lloyd Pierce, played with Nash in their college days at Santa Clara, something Young discovered in his first workout in Atlanta.
"When I worked out for the Hawks and got to talk to coach Pierce for the first time, I told him Nash was my favourite player and he told me all these stories and things like that. I probably got on his nerves asking him a lot of Nash questions that night. That's when I first found out him and Steve played with each other," Young said.
Young told Johnson he also had a lot of questions when he met Nash for the first time, too.
"Coming into the league, I knew the NBA was a big pick-and-roll game. In college, I played a little bit of it but I knew in the NBA I was going to play it a lot. Steve was one of the best ever point guards in the pick-and-roll so I asked him a lot of pick-and-roll questions.
"I got to work out with Steve last summer going into my second year (in the league) and it was more like a teaching lesson. We got in the gym for about two hours and I was asking him a lot of questions about the pick-and-roll: when he comes off it, what is the first thing he looks for, when does he know when to attack or pass, little things like that.
"You really have to be around him to learn from him. You can't really learn just by watching film. It was pretty cool."
Johnson then jokingly asked Young if he had been defeated by any retired NBA players at HORSE recently, a reference to the Hawks star's surprise loss to Chauncey Billups in last month's NBA HORSE competition.
"Yes," Young laughed. "One of the best to ever do it, Mr Big Shot (Billups). How do you make (a one-armed underarm free throw)? Embarrassing! I let the lead slip!"
