Trae Young has earned a lot of respect throughout the NBA community during the Atlanta Hawks' playoff run to this point. So far, he's averaged 28.8 points and 9.8 assists over eight games which was more than enough to topple the New York Knicks and has already led to one upset win over the 76ers. He's scoring in all sorts of ways, including his typical long threes and his creative finishing ability at the rim. Simply put, he has played brilliant basketball.
But one controversial method of scoring that has always been a prevalent part of his game continues to draw less favorable reviews from the viewers: finding creative ways to draw contact during his shot and getting to the free throw line.
And though he's a good player to use as an example of this strategy, he's far from the only perpetrator. In fact, there are stars all throughout the league, some of whom are still in the playoff running, who have certainly benefitted from their "ability" to draw contact — James Harden, Joel Embiid and Luka Doncic can round out that Mount Rushmore, which can reasonably be headed by Young. Even legends like Dwyane Wade were known to get opponents in the air and then leap into them in an attempt to guarantee a foul call.
With all of the griping from opponents, coaches and fan bases about these eyebrow-raising techniques to draw fouls, the league looks to be taking notice. According to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski, the NBA's Competition Committee held a meeting on Monday to go over this exact issue.
Wojnarowski added that this issue has been "at the center of league discussions for a long period of time," though no action has been taken... yet. Should this meeting bring about a change to what's allowed, it would likely affect the playing styles of the aforementioned stars — for instance, Embiid (No. 1), Young (No. 4), Harden (No. 7) and Doncic (No. 11) all ranked near the top of the league in free throw attempts per game this season, which might not have been the case without their foul-drawing techniques — though they're all more than good enough to keep their status as the stars of the league.
One certain takeaway if new rules were implemented? Steve Nash would be pretty happy, even if it does affect one of his players.
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