Trae Young is one of the NBA’s brightest young stars as he’s the face of the franchise for the Atlanta Hawks. His parents are credited for his unique way of playing as his parents have experience in playing the sport.
Young was born on Sept. 19, 1998, to Candice Dawn and Rayford Young in Lubbock, Texas.
Rayford played college basketball for Texas Tech for four years. Standing at 5-foot-11, Young had a decent stint in college. In his senior year, he led the team in scoring with 17.8 points per game and showed his defensive prowess, getting 1.8 steals a game.
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Young’s father played basketball professionally in Europe.
Candice met Rayford in high school, and they followed each other at Texas Tech. While studying in college, the couple welcomed Trae to the world. Candice is known to be a devout Christian as she grew up as a pastor’s daughter and has passed down her faith to her children.
She’s insistent on getting her children to go to church and even talked about it before Young getting drafted. In an interview with ESPN, she talked about encouraging her kids to attend church.
“It’s important to me,” Candice Young said. “If you’re at home, you’re gonna get up. It’s not an option. I feel like that’s the grounding they get at the beginning of the week. It starts you off right.”
During the time when Trae found out about Kobe Bryant’s death, Candice was there to comfort her son.
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Trae Young says it isn’t easy being a villain in the NBA
Trae Young is known to be a villain in the league for his outstanding performances in the postseason against the New York Knicks and the Boston Celtics. During an interview with Draymond Green, who’s also embraced the villain role, Young said that it isn’t easy becoming a villain in front of the crowd’s eyes.
“S**t ain’t really fun being a villain.” Young said. “I don’t dive into that. I kinda feed off the crowd.
“If you were listening to the game, 10 minutes left in the first quarter of Game 1, the whole arena was yelling, ‘F*** Trae Young!’ What do you want me to do? Like, I’m just hooping, I’m just playing, I ain’t said nothing to the crowd, I ain’t bowed, I ain’t say, ‘It’s quiet as f*** in here.’ I ain’t said none of that yet.
“I come out playing, trying to win, trying to put on a show. If the fans want to get into it … I just really feed off the crowd.”
Young is one of the few NBA stars who can play the villain role perfectly. He may seem like the bad guy with his antics, but he’s a hero for the Hawks.
Also read: “We butted heads for couple of times” – Trae Young clears air on ‘coach killer’ narrative around him with Draymond Green