The Rookie of the Year race in the NBA this season will be a two-man debate, for however much there is to debate. Mavs rookie Luka Doncic has seemingly had the award locked up for most of the season, but Trae Young’s recent surge in Atlanta has at least sparked some conversation about whether the race will tighten up down the stretch run.
While Young has been fantastic of late, highlighted by a 49-point outburst in a 4OT game against the Bulls on Friday, Doncic’s season long numbers are still better than Young’s and even if you take out Young’s first month and a half of struggles, that’s still the case.
Even if the end result to this year’s ROY voting is something similar to last year, where months of chatter ends up in a landslide victory for Doncic (like for Ben Simmons against Donovan Mitchell), it’s great to see Young and Doncic both playing at a high level so early in their careers. Unlike Simmons and Mitchell, the two aren’t pitting themselves against each other, but instead have been nothing but complimentary of the other.
On the most recent episode of the Winging It podcast on The Ringer, Young and fellow Hawks star John Collins joined Kent Bazemore, Vince Carter, and Annie Finberg and eventually the conversation turned to Doncic. Young talked about how Doncic’s success motivated him, but that he hoped both would have excellent careers and have battles in the vein of “guys like Magic and Bird.”
"It can go down as a battle like Magic and Bird. They battled for years and were always compared to each other. It could be something like that, where we both can be great." @TheTraeYoung on comparisons to @Luka7Doncic.
VIA @Ringer, #WingingItPod pic.twitter.com/bfcGypN3MN
— Ballislife.com (@Ballislife) March 5, 2019
Now, bringing up Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, two of the best players in NBA history, isn’t something to be thrown out there lightly, but the larger point from Young is understandable. The hope for both franchises is that Young and Doncic both play great for over a decade and elevate both teams to being contenders, possibly meeting for the ultimate prize a few times.
That’s the goal, of course, but it remains to be seen if either is capable of doing that. They’re off to great starts, but there’s still a long way to go for either to be the key cog on a championship squad.
