Steph Curry and Trae Young Work Out After Rico Hines Runs at UCLA
Every summer, pro hoopers from both the NBA and overseas leagues gather at the University of California in Los Angeles to play in what’s been renowned as one of basketball’s best pick-up games. The pro runs from coach Rico Hines, currently in charge of player development for the Toronto Raptors and a former UCLA hooper himself, bring talent from every corner of the pro basketball world.
This year, we got to see a rare sight even for runs of this caliber.
Steph Curry, while arguably the most skilled basketball player ever, doesn’t show it often outside of the occasional pro-am appearance in San Francisco or at his camps for up-and-coming high school players. Seeing Steph play pickup in a setting like this is a rarity despite the talent that’s putting in work at UCLA each summer, but it’s certainly fun to watch, giving previews for next season’s matchups like this moment with Pistons guard and #1 overall draft pick last season, Cade Cunningham:
What’s crazy about watching Steph play pick-up is that it’s basically the same stuff he does on the court in NBA games. He’s such a wizard with the rock that he can make a crowded stadium under the bright lights look like an LA Fitness, or a college practice gym in Southern California. Wherever he winds up, the level of play remains consistent, and it’s always a fun watch.
In addition to the runs, sources told TheWarriorsTalk Curry had a private workout with another NBA star who has his game often likened to the 2-time MVP: Trae Young. Coming out of college, Young’s size, shooting ability, and slick handle drew a lot of comparisons to Steph, and those comparisons haven’t stopped as he’s continued to wreak havoc on defenses from far beyond the arc. As an undersized perimeter shot creator, it stands to reason that Young could learn a lot from the guy who made the long-range barrage brand of basketball a winning one, and it seems like he’s getting all the knowledge he can from that work.
There’s a whole lot of buckets in those flicks. A whole lot of buckets that have made even the NBA’s best defenders throw their hands up, asking “how do we even guard this guy?”.
Trae Young is undeniably a stud, but being able to expand his game to off-ball pressure as well as his phenomenal on-ball shooting and playmaking would take him one step further into that higher tier of the NBA’s best. We’ve seen how scoring gravity, just from standing on the court and running through weak-side actions like a cone drill, can open up teams to operate in unique ways offensively that help them win; if Trae can learn from Steph to add that wrinkle of being a threat with or without the ball in his hands all the time, then it’d not just raise his value, but the rate at which the Atlanta Hawks win.
The Warriors will play the Hawks twice this season as they do with every other opponent in the Eastern Conference, first at home on January 2nd right after the start of the new year, and second in Atlanta on March 17th. It remains to be seen what the league’s standings will look like during both of those games as they’re close to both the trade deadline and the playoffs, but the 30-foot shootouts between Young and Curry should be fun watches either way.
(Photo credit: Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)