Nick Young Will Play Major Role Upon Return to Los Angeles Lakers
With their embryonic season in a tailspin, the Los Angeles Lakers need Nick Young back on the floor in a major way.
The effervescent "Swaggy P" has been out of commission since tearing a thumb ligament during training camp. Meanwhile, his small forward compatriots—Wesley Johnson and Xavier Henry—are offering only token production with the Lakers stumbling out to 1-7 start and an apparent date with oblivion.
The Purple and Gold are getting nothing out of the small forward position—it’s time for some high-scoring swag!
A ray of light may be appearing at the end of the Lakers’ current dark tunnel. The 29-year-old swingman wasn’t expected to return from surgery until early December. As it turns out, Young could be back as early as Nov. 18 for the start of a three-game road trip, according to Bill Oram of the Orange County Register:
It’s not that the Lakers have no other offensive weapons—Kobe Bryant is currently the league’s leading scorer at 27.5 points per game.
Meanwhile, his teammates are doing a splendid job of watching how a 36-year-old makes that happen.
Young won’t be among the wallflowers once he returns—he embraces the spotlight and pure love of scoring to an irrational extreme. He’ll chuck it up from anywhere at any time, and last season, he feasted on a steady green light from Mike D’Antoni and wound up as the team’s leading scorer despite coming off the bench.
That accomplishment earned Young a new four-year deal worth $21.5 million—it was a nice bump up from the league-minimum salary he earned last year. It also provided an opportunity for the former pride of Reseda’s Cleveland High, and USC, to further his career in his native Los Angeles alongside a superstar whom he idolized growing up, per ESPN's Dave McMenamin:
The original plan for the new season was for Young to reprise his sixth-man role—albeit with some latitude for how he and Bryant might dovetail. As Lakers coach Byron Scott said to Mike Trudell of Lakers.com this summer: “(Young) will play together with Kobe as well, but I do love his energy and firepower being able to score the ball off the bench.”
The duo didn’t get the chance to do much damage together last time around. And in a strange twist of irony, the injury from training camp was a result of Young trying to steal the ball from Bryant.
Joked the face of the franchise in an NBA TV interview, via SB Nation's Mike Prada: “He’s got to move his feet on defense. That’s the lesson to be learned. You reach, you’re going to get hurt.”
Turning serious, Bryant elaborated on possible silver linings:
"He’s got to learn how to get better. As he’s sitting out here, he and I will do a lot of talking and a lot of film work. He has to improve on the mental aspects of the game, so that when he comes back, he feels that he’s more knowledgeable than he was when he left. So he has to use it as an opportunity to get better.
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Whether the free-spirted gunner has indeed embraced his time off as a learning experience is yet to be determined. But what is painfully obvious is that the Lakers need more than Young’s proclivity for putting the ball in the bucket.
That something else lies at the other end of the court, as the team continues to trot out the worst defense in the league.
Young has never been known as a particularly adroit stopper. Still, when Scott spoke with Trudell, he recalled a revelation from his job as an on-air analyst last season: “He changed his whole persona, what people thought of him. I’d never seen him play defense before.”
You can’t blame the notoriously old-school Scott for wanting and hoping to see defensive responsibility in all his players, per the Los Angeles Times' Mark Medina:
Regardless of anybody’s priorities and expectations, Young will bring the pure joy of playing basketball when he returns to the court. He has the unshakable belief system of the pure basketball scorer—that every shot he takes will go in and if it doesn’t, there’s another one begging to be launched. And if his defensive acumen is sometimes questionable, he’ll still reach in and give it a try—injured digits notwithstanding.
At some point soon, Lakers games will receive a needed jolt of energy, enthusiasm and a player who can create his own shot.
Nick Young is about to play a major role for his hometown team.
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