Look, I know it’s just preseason, and just a few hours ago I yelled, “You’re all freaks!” at my colleagues because they preferred to watch pointless NBA games tonight instead of a competitive Stanley Cup Final rematch. But this game-winning trey from Trae Young is worth your time, even if you’re a healthy person who understands that basketball doesn’t actually start for another week.
Young was a super cool freshman at Oklahoma last year who tried his best to carry an otherwise putrid team by spending a bunch of possessions just bombing threes while his teammates chilled out and watched. It occasionally failed spectacularly, but most of the time, Young looked like the best player in the country, and all of the time, it was impossible not to watch.
Young got drafted with the fifth pick and ended up in Atlanta, where in his tune-up games he’s looked like the exact type of inconsistent yet electric rookie you would expect. And with the score tied at the end of a Spurs-Hawks game tonight that I will not pretend to have otherwise paid attention to, he casually tossed up a completely ill-advised long-distance shot through the net for the win.
You now have permission to kind of, sort of care about the Atlanta Hawks.