Trae Young happy to play the villain, fueled by the boos

By Melissa Rohlin
FOX Sports NBA Writer

Trae Young's father chuckles when asked about his son being portrayed as a villain.

To Rayford Young, Trae is shy and understated. 

After Trae scored a career-high 56 points earlier this month against Portland, father and son chatted on the phone about everything but the fourth-year guard's performance. Rayford proudly points out that his son still calls him every day to say hi. And after games, Trae insists on hugging his mother, his siblings and his father (in that order) before leaving the court. 

But the Atlanta Hawks' superstar has a very different persona when he has a basketball in his hands.

Young is the guy opposing fans love to hate. During the first round of the playoffs last season against the New York Knicks, the crowd at Madison Square Garden chanted "F--- Trae Young" and "Trae is balding" so loudly that TV audiences could hear it. One fan even spat on him during Game 2 of that series. And there are countless columns and YouTube videos calling him "the most annoying" and "the most hated" player in the NBA.

Truth is, the 6-foot-1, 164-pound Young relishes the villain role.

The trash-talking excites him. The meaner the chant from the crowd, the more motivated he becomes. The more intense the vitriol, the harder he plays. Young is so used to being the object of everyone's ire that he has learned how to channel it into becoming his strength.

"He hates when I say this, but he’s got that short-man syndrome, where they're just mad, and they’re gonna show you that they belong," Rayford Young told FOX Sports.

"He has worked really, really, really hard to get here. And that’s not to say that other players didn't. But he didn't have some of the advantages that those guys had as far as athleticism, the size, the speed and all that. So whenever he hears the boos, or he hears people saying that he can't, he's gonna show them that he can."

Young's approach to the game was deeply shaped by his father, who was an All-Big 12 selection at Texas Tech and was named one of nation's top players under 6 feet tall in 1998-99 by Athlon Sports.

Rayford always wanted his son's career to surpass his own. He'd take Trae to the YMCA at 5 a.m. to shoot 500 shots before school, work his 9-to-5 job as a pharmaceutical sales rep and then pick his son up and bring him back to the gym.

He used to hold up a broomstick so Young could learn to shoot over taller players. He taught him "the nutmeg" pass, so he could throw passes through big men's legs. And he taught him how to stop on a dime and draw fouls, something that has endlessly irked opposing fans. 

In fact, during the first round of the playoffs last season, former New York mayor Bill de Blasio issued a special message to Young during one of his news conferences, urging him to play the game the right way and "stop hunting for fouls." He included a warning: "I think the Knicks are going to teach you a lesson."

Of course, Young had the last laugh. After making a 30-footer in the final minute of the series-clinching Game 5, Young bowed at center court and then waved goodbye to Knicks fans, issuing a knockout taunt after their endless pokes.

For Young, none of this was unusual. 

Rayford said Trae began being heckled by grown women and men when he was in seventh grade. People have always found him irritating. He's too self-assured. He searches for fouls. He teases fans after he makes big plays. For someone so undersized, his presence is far too oversized.

His over-the-top approach to the game inspires an equally intense response from fans.

People would make fun of Young for being short. They'd tease him for his hair being wispy. A few times, he came home upset. 

But he quickly realized those insults could be used to his advantage. He could harness those words for extra motivation.

"It wasn't so much about proving everybody wrong," Rayford said. "It was making sure that he proved his inner circle right because we all believed in who he was."

When Young entered high school at Norman (Oklahoma) North, coach Bryan Merritt was taken aback by him. Off the court, Young was an awkward teenager trying to find his way, just like everyone else.

But on the court, there was something highly unusual about him.

"This is my 25th year of coaching high school basketball, and I’ve never been around any kid close to having the confidence and belief in themselves that he had from day one, when he was 14 years old and weighed 110 pounds, to when he left and went to OU," said Merritt, who is now the coach at Tuttle High.

"When he was in ninth grade, he would’ve told you flat-out that he could beat LeBron James or Kevin Durant, and he would’ve really believed it."

At age 16, in a game against his school's rival, Norman High, Young dribbled through a defender's legs and then swished a stepback 3-pointer. After that play, he took a bow. 

He was even a showboat back then.

During road games, Merritt loved watching Young respond to being taunted. He knew what would come next. Young would unleash the beast. He'd make the offenders pay.

According to Merritt, the key to stopping Young is to be quiet. 

"If my team was going to play against Trae, I would tell my players just play — don't say a word, good, bad or anything," Merritt said. "He's not nearly as motivated [then]. If you start talking to him, and things start happening in the crowd, that’s no bueno to do that with him."

Young's profile skyrocketed as he grew into a great shooter, as well as a skilled point guard. He held his own against some of the country's top prospects, including the Sacramento Kings' De'Aaron Fox and Boston Celtics' Jason Tatum. Offers started pouring in from Kentucky, Duke and UCLA.

But Young surprised everyone, including his father, when he chose the University of Oklahoma. His father feared he wouldn't get the exposure he deserved there. But Young was determined to play for now-retired longtime Sooners coach Lon Kruger, whom he trusted.

He decided to gamble on himself.

"The one thing I think that changed my son's life — and it's the reason that he's where he's at now — is a week before he had to make his college decision, he just looked me in the eye and said, 'Dad, I think I want to just stay home,'" Rayford recalled. "'I want to stay home and go to Oklahoma.' And when he did that, it showed me that he had the self-confidence to turn down any school in the country."

Instead of being one of a handful of All-Americans on his team, Young became The Man. Under Kruger, his game flourished. In his one season at Oklahoma, in 2017-18, Young became the first Division I player to lead the country in both scoring (27.4) and assists (8.8) since 1983, when assists became an official statistic.

Rayford watched stunned as major television networks shuffled their schedules so they could feature his son in national time slots. 

Young was never the most athletic guy on the court. He's not that fast. He's not that tall. But he's quick, and he's smart, and he's able to capitalize on any opening and create for himself or his teammates.

"He was unbelievably skilled with the ball," Kruger said. "His imagination, his lack of fear. He's aggressive and attacking. He had the ability to not only have vision for what comes ahead but the skill to complete the play."

Other people saw it, too.

The Hawks selected Young fifth overall in the 2018 NBA Draft after trading down from the No. 3 spot, where the Dallas Mavericks selected Luka Dončić. Since that move, the young stars have perpetually been compared to each other, adding yet another spark to the gasoline for Young.

Since entering the NBA, Young has floored everyone, including his own father. Rayford always thought his son would be great, but he didn't think it would happen this quickly. Young made the All-Star team in 2020, his second season in the league. Last season, he led the Hawks to the Eastern Conference finals, the first time the franchise had gone that far since 2015.

There were so many highlights during that run. In Game 1 against the Knicks, Young made a game-winning floater with 0.9 seconds left. In Game 5 of the Eastern Conference semifinals against Philadelphia, he had 39 points and seven assists. And in Game 1 of the conference finals against Milwaukee, he had a playoff-career-high 48 points, 11 assists and seven rebounds. (Young missed Games 4 and 5 of that series because of a bone bruise in his right foot.)

This season, Young is fourth in the league in points (27.6) and third in assists (9.3). He's poised for another All-Star selection, even though the Hawks have skidded to 12th in the East, with a woeful 17-25 record due to an extremely porous defense and an underwhelming supporting cast.

For Rayford, his son's ascension continues to stun him. 

"I can't begin to explain to you how weird it is when I see a tweet or I see someone on SportsCenter say, ‘Well, he’s just tied Michael Jordan for this record' or 'He just beat Steph Curry for this record,'" Rayford said. "That is still surreal to me."

As for his son being a villain, it's a narrative Rayford enjoys. After all, he helped create it. But his wife, Candice, and their younger son and two daughters have had a tougher time with it.

In New York during the playoffs, Candice was thrilled to watch Young play at Madison Square Garden. She also bought her family tickets to see Broadway shows. But the crowd's relentless taunting of Trae began to chip away at their joy.

"It kind of ruined their trip — until Trae hit the winning shot," Rayford said with a laugh. "We were all fine after that."

For Young, the heckling is music to his ears. In response, he'll shimmy. He'll hold his fingers to his mouth and silence crowds. He'll transform into the person everyone wants to despise.

It's a phenomenon Rayford deeply understands. He has watched it play out many times. For his son, the game within the game is what really inspires him.

"He wants to shoot the deep 3 in another arena and look at the crowd and tell them to sit down and shut up," Rayford said. "He wants to put on a show. 

"But at the end of the day, the same fan that is heckling him and telling him that he’s horrible, he’s probably going to take his shoes off and hand them his shoes or maybe even hand them his jersey."

Why is Young rewarding hecklers? Because they inspire him?

"Exactly," Rayford said.

Melissa Rohlin is an NBA writer for FOX Sports. She previously covered the league for Sports Illustrated, the Los Angeles Times, the Bay Area News Group and the San Antonio Express-News. Follow her on Twitter @melissarohlin.