Rookies Grayson Allen and Trae Young got into a minor shoving scuffle Thursday night during the Utah Jazz versus Atlanta Hawks NBA 2018 Summer League game in Salt Lake City. The Jazz topped the Hawks 92-87.
Not far into the third quarter, Allen, guarding Young, moved in and as Young rose to shoot, the two became knotted. After aggressively extracting themselves, Allen shoved his head into Young’s mid-section. The brief skirmish ended when refs and team members rushed in to break it up.
Young and Allen both received a technical foul. Allen has a reputation for tripping players while playing college hoops.
Young told the AP that it wasn’t his first scrape and won’t be the last. “…it’s not the first time and last time I’m going to get tangled up with someone. It’s going to happen. This is the NBA. It’s going to be a physical game. Grayson is a physical player. I’m a physical player.”
And Allen said it wasn’t a thing: “Nothing more than a play in a very competitive and physical game.”
Young, whose first name is Rayford, played college basketball for the Oklahoma Sooners. In 2017, Young was considered one of the best in the recruiting class and ESPN said he was the “second-best” point guard prospect. “Young is one of the better looking point guard prospects in the country, regardless of class. He is a scoring lead guard with a solid frame (good length) and a high basketball IQ. His ultimate strength is his ability to knock in shots,” ESPN said in Young’s scouting report.
Allen, 22, the 6′ 4″ shooting guard played for Duke and was drafted by the Jazz this year. In its scouting report, ESPN said “The first thing you notice is his confidence behind the 3-point line. He’s a natural perimeter player who is a high percentage 3-point shooter. See’s the floor very well and can transition from scorer to passer easily. He’s got an innate feel for the game and is in constant motion …”
He is known for a number of ‘tripping incidents’ in his Blue Devils career, something he said he’d “put behind” him.
Tripping, fisticuffs and elbowing, Allen was described as possibly the “next hated white Duke player,” following a number of incidents including purposely tripping a player in 2016, got a technical and was thrown off the court that season for screaming at a referee, elbowed a player during a scuffle and ESPN reported tripped Florida State University’s Xavier Rathan-Mayes and was reprimanded by the Athletic Coast Conference.
And despite saying he’d quit the tripping, he did it again and got another technical and was suspended from the Blue Devils for one game and was no longer team captain. Three months ago, in March, he was charged with a flagrant foul in the ACC tourney for another tripping incident.