The tides are constantly turning in the highly-competitive world of the NBA, and as always, there is a new dawn of new-age point guards emerging into superstardom. While their status might somewhat come in varying degrees, Atlanta Hawks rookie sensation Trae Young and Los Angeles Clippers stud Shai Gilgeous-Alexander are undoubtedly two of the most promising point guards we have in the league today.
As it turns out, these two youngsters apparently share a similar role model in terms of an active player who they have chosen to pattern their games on. As explained by ESPN's Kevin Arnovitz, this is no less than Memphis Grizzlies veteran guard Mike Conley.
And there's another point guard both Gilgeous-Alexander and Young each independently cite when asked if there were active players in the league whom they studied closely for the kinds of secrets, hacks and shortcuts that you can only conceive of by observing first-hand: Mike Conley.
According to Young, what stands out for him the most is Conley's floor general attributes.
“He just knows how to control the game,” Young says. “His change of speed, his change of pace, the tempo in which he plays at really made me think about how a point guard needs to run the game, and control the game.”
Similarly, Gilgeous-Alexander had nothing but good things to say about Conley, noting that he considers the Grizzlies guard's game as a template for his own development.
Conley may not exactly be the most exciting or the most decorated player in the league, but with his fundamentals so on point, the younger generation have began patterning their games to his — definitely a compliment of the highest standards.
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