Nick Young shows why it’s dangerous to give up on talented players

Nick Young has rebranded himself. He is no longer a distraction or considered detrimental to the Lakers, but is actually seen as a key player now. He’s managed to change not just the perception of himself, but his playing style, as well. He’s become better at an age most players decline and the Lakers will miss him while he sits with an Achilles injury.

While this achievement has its merits in his hard work, it also has a lot to do with how the situation around him has changed.

Nick Young will never stop being Nick Young. He will always be the player that steals a pass intended for a teammate, so that he can hit the game-winner against the Oklahoma City Thunder himself. He will always be the player that celebrates by adopting D’Angelo Russell’s “ice in my veins” celebration after he does hit the shot. And he will always be the player that then compares his shot to game-winners by Kobe Bryant and Robert Horry, before saying that his is more special because he stole the pass from a teammate.

That, for better or worse, is his personality. In tumultuous times, it comes off as frivolous and detrimental. When his team is winning, it becomes a fun little sideshow.

It was a show that was certainly on the chopping block before the season, thanks to two bad years, a controversy that saw D’Angelo Russell record Young admitting to infidelity, and a freeze-out of Russell that lasted long enough that it seemed that one of the two would have to go.

If the Lakers had to choose, they would obviously choose Russell. All of this mixed with Luke Walton replace Byron Scott to restore the Lakers to relevancy put Young’s chances of being on the team this season in danger. He had become an irrelevant joke.

Maybe he would be gone if the Lakers could have found a trade partner for his contract. Yet, he survived the divide with Russell, training camp, and the waiver deadline to make the team. Not only that, he’s a starter tasked with the huge responsibility of guarding the opposing team’s best wing player. He’s now a supposed defensive stopper.

Young isn’t complaining. In fact, he’s actually basking in this new responsibility and new life.

Young certainly has matured. This was his last chance. No teams were willing to trade for him, and it seemed a foregone conclusion that he would have to go overseas in order to continue playing basketball. He was seen as a clown, and his obvious talents weren’t able to garner any real interest from NBA teams.

So, with his NBA career on the verge of extinction, Young knew that he had to work to justify the Lakers keeping him. There was no more safety net. At 31, he was too old and too experienced to just be silly Nick Young. He had to show that he could be a serviceable player again, like he did in his first season in LA.

But he’s also simply being trusted with a larger, yet clearer responsibility. He’s in a much better and demanding situation, one that allows him to excel — unlike the previous two years.

This is the trick to player evaluations in many sports. Most athletes have a base level of talent and skills. They have the capability to perfect certain basketball traits and their bodies are capable of a certain kind of athleticism. Young has shown that he can be an excellent shooter.

Young’s first season in the league saw him shoot 43.9 percent from the field and 40 percent from three. After a strong third season, he started to dip and stay in the 30s in three-point percentage this season, where he’s shooting 42 percent from three and almost 46 percent from the field.

Yet, he never actually forgot how to shoot. For a number of reasons, which include his awful situations in Washington, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles before now, he never maximized that talent.

The same is true with his defensive ability. It was always possible for him to be used as a defensive weapon, at least to hassle and make life difficult for opponents. He has good length and solid lateral quickness. He was just never put in the proper position to capitalize on that talent.

He had the talent, yet for so long, he was just a goofy, unconscious volume shooter. Nobody reached him to demand more in the proper way. Then, Luke Walton came in. Thanks to him and a kick in the butt from last year, Young is a legitimate starter, “defensive stopper,” off-the-ball threat, and spot-up shooter for a surprising team.

This legitimizes something that we know implicitly, but usually forget quickly when evaluating athletes. The burden is not on the individual alone. The circumstances that surround him are vital. Unless players are otherworldly like LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Russell Westbrook, Kevin Durant, DeMarcus Cousins, and so on, they need a good environment to succeed. Even those physical freaks players benefit greatly from being with a good coach and having the right organizational structure.

It’s not enough to simply judge the player in a vacuum. We must also ask if the coach and the team are using them to their full potential. A player’s failures are not only an indictment of him, but also of everyone surrounding him.

J.R Smith is another excellent examples. He possesses that same knucklehead label that Young shares, one that diminished him so much that the Knicks didn’t have a second thought in sending him to Cleveland. But LeBron James saw his ability and knew that a stable environment, actual responsibility, a purpose, and being held accountable could empower Smith to be more than just a joke.

And it worked. Even if James has to chaperone him everywhere, and even if those goofy tendencies do resurface from time to time.

Great leaders and coaches don’t just give players confidence and put them in the position to do what they do best. As Walton and James have done, sometimes they must coax players into doing something they don’t even know they’re capable of doing.

Leadership is showing players they’re not as limited as they think. Leadership is helping a player who was close to being waived become a key part of a resurgent team.