Nick Young Facing Final Chance to Stay Home with Los Angeles Lakers
One year ago, Nick Young was coming off a career-best season and about to re-sign with the Los Angeles Lakers on a lucrative new deal. But now, he’s merely an afterthought—a veteran vagabond on a team that’s all about the future.
Heading toward his ninth NBA season, the 30-year-old is hoping to find his way again in L.A.
The four-year, $21.5 million deal Young signed last July was in part a reward for being the team’s leading scorer, and off the bench no less. It was also an endorsement for better things to come.
“Nick was a bright spot for us last season, and we are happy to retain such a skilled player who is committed to being a part of what we are building as a franchise,” general manager Mitch Kupchak said at the time, per Lakers.com.
After all, the effervescent scorer had been about the only good thing in a dismal Lakers season under then-coach Mike D’Antoni. Young had returned to his hometown of Los Angeles the prior summer on a minimum-salary deal—a live-and-let-fly journeyman who had jacked the ball up without remorse, every step of the way.
Swaggy P was perfectly suited for D’Antoni’s free-flowing system. But the coach had already exited stage left by the time Young received his new contract.
There was about to be a new sheriff in town, and life would change dramatically for Young.
The Lakers have shown little consistency in the hiring of head coaches in recent years. The sage Phil Jackson, with all his championship rings, was replaced by Mike Brown—a gregarious bundle of energy who drilled down on defensive details but lacked creativity on the other end of the floor. Brown’s replacement was D’Antoni, who has always cared about one thing only—getting more points faster.
And then came Scott—poles apart from his predecessor and unyielding in his conviction that defense wins games. As for the scoring end of the floor, the longtime NBA operative favors a hybrid Princeton system that is heavy on off-ball movement and back screens.
Things went south for Young almost immediately. A week into Scott’s notoriously tough training camp, the newly re-inked wing attempted due diligence when he tried to steal the ball from Kobe Bryant. The result was a torn ligament on Young’s shooting hand that would require surgery.
“This year being just one of those years,” Young would say six months later during his exit interview, per a Lakers.com video. “I got hit with the injury bug pretty early. It was my first real surgery I had to go through.”
By the time Young returned to the lineup, the team was already skidding through losses. The unrepentant shooter didn’t seem like the same player from the year before. His efficiency was down and curling off screens without the ball in his hands was something of a foreign concept.
Consistency continued to bedevil Young as the calendar turned to 2015, as noted by Joey Ramirez for Lakers.com. But there were still some areas of strength, including the sixth man’s 44.4 percent conversion rate for corner jumpers.
Meanwhile, an old-school fundamentalist wasn’t exactly propping up Young’s confidence.
As January turned to February and with the team suffering a horrendous loss streak, Scott benched his loose cannon for three games.
As Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Daily News reported, Scott wanted Young to become more than “a one-trick pony.”
“He takes very tough shots,” the coach elaborated. “He settles sometimes for the jump shot and has to mix the game up.”
Young seemed amenable to change, responding: “Obviously they brought me here to put the ball in the hole. But I’ve got to learn the ins and outs.”
But two weeks later, Young’s season was done after he fractured his kneecap. He had played just 42 games.
It’s easy to look at a player’s failings in absolutes, assuming that a down season is reason to forgo any final chance. But despite a shooter’s slump, Young was still the team’s second-leading scorer behind Bryant in points averaged per game.
Simply put, Young’s stats alone do not present a compelling case to ride him out of town on a rail.
| MP | FG% | 3PT% | RBD | AST | PTS | |
| 2013-14 | 28.3 | .425 | .386 | 2.6 | 1.5 | 17.9 |
| 2014-15 | 23.8 | .366 | .369 | 2.3 | 1.0 | 13.4 |
| Career | 23.8 | .423 | .376 | 2.0 | 1.1 | 12.3 |
During his exit interview, Young was asked about his coach’s criticisms throughout the season.
“I take that as, he wants me to get better,” the former USC standout replied. “If he isn’t talking about you, he doesn’t care about you.”
But if Young does indeed snap back to form, where will it be? Rumors have circulated that the 6’7” L.A. native could be headed out the door. As Medina reported in April, “the Lakers will entertain trade offers for him, according to a team official familiar with the front office’s thinking.”
Heading into the draft and the free-agency period that follows, it’s not hard to envision Young as a potential trade chip, just one more way to acquire new talent for a team coming off its worst season in history.
It’s the nature of a distasteful year—distance yourself from the scapegoats. But there are other obvious factors to consider as well.
Such as, a team that struggled offensively at 98.5 points per game can benefit from the presence of a guy who lives to score the ball.
And, Young’s $5.2 million salary next year is hardly a millstone around the Lakers' neck.
The player who once lit it up at Cleveland High School in the San Fernando Valley has matured with time. He’s now engaged to girlfriend Iggy Azalea, with whom he owns a house. The blissful baller recently took to Twitter to announce his matrimonial intentions:
Young also understands the business side of basketball and the pressure of expectations.
“I know this isn’t it for me,” he said during his exit interview. “I know there’s always next year. There’s always something to look forward to.”
At the end of the day, a second-unit scorer spent a lot of time watching from the sidelines this season as his team sunk ever further into the abyss. There’s plenty of blame to go around.
And now Young waits in summer limbo to see if he gets another chance with his hometown Lakers.
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