Los Angeles Lakers: Nick Young Questions Loom Over Offseason

Nick Young is a potential free agent this offseason for the Los Angeles Lakers. Can they re-sign him? Will they re-sign him?

We’ve discussed in volumes about the various offseason decisions surrounding the Los Angeles Lakers. From figuring out how to navigate this team’s window and whether they want to expedite that, to playing players coming off their rookie contracts.

Magic Johnson and Rob Pelinka will have a ton of work on their hands with the roster.

One of their decisions? Whether or not they want to re-sign veteran swingman Nick Young.

A year ago, it would have been an easy decision to move on. Young was coming off a disastrous season, averaging 7.3 points, 1.8 rebounds, 1.6 assists, 33 percent from the field and a rather nasty situation involving D’Angelo Russell.

That was coming off a season where he averaged 13.4 points, but shot 36 percent from the field in 40 games.

After signing a four-year deal worth $21.5 million in the 2014 offseason, Young slapped together two awful seasons and found himself on the outside looking in.

Entering his age-31 season, Young was running out of time to prove that he was worth the trouble. Before arriving in Los Angeles, Young saw his career bounce from Washington to the rival Los Angeles Clippers and then Philadelphia.

All three hoped he could fill a spot on a good team and it never fully happened as he bounced from team to team, not putting it all together.

This season, however, things turned around. Young has averaged 13.2 points per game, but on 43 percent shooting — his highest shooting percentage since the 2013-14 season.

Always a healthy three-point shooter, Young jumped up to 40 percent shooting on 7.0 attempts this season, a far cry from the 32 percent he shot the year before.

He still doesn’t do much outside of putting the ball in the basket — 2.3 rebounds, 1.0 assists and 0.6 steals — but his shooting is still valuable to an NBA offense.

He’s even been trying on the defensive side of the ball. Head coach Luke Walton has praised him for his defensive effort at times, even though the numbers don’t bear that out.

Los Angeles Lakers /

Los Angeles Lakers

Via basketball-reference.com, Young’s defensive box plus/minus is still a woeful minus-3.6, but he’s also sporting a career high in WORP at 0.4.

He’s still one of the worst shooting guards in terms of defensive real plus-minus at minus-1.91, ranking 84th among 99 shooting guards ranked.

So what should the Lakers do?

Young in a sixth man role moving forward would be ideal.

Despite a potential hole at the shooting guard spot, the combination of Young and teammate/former rival Russell in the backcourt would give opposing teams a turnstile (the two have an 110.4 defensive rating on the floor together) on the defensive end.

You can’t play him over Brandon Ingram, either, as Ingram is the future of the small forward/second wing position.

But Young is already in entering his age-32 season with just one decent contract under his books. With teams needing shooting and depth on the wings, Young will be a sought-after free agent. Imagine if a team such as Memphis or Oklahoma City had Young on the wing.

What New Orleans, which could use him as a starter working off of the gravity of Anthony Davis and DeMarcus Cousins?

Young has several potential landing spots and in the second and potentially final salary cap boom, Young can cash in for the final stretch run of his career.

And the Lakers could potentially go a cheaper route to replicate Young’s production. On one side, Los Angeles can continue to use the newly named G-League and try to find a shooter in that market.

We’ve seen players such as Yogi Ferrell and Troy Daniels have success on other teams, perhaps the Lakers can do the same in an attempt to find a role player who can space the floor.

Or Los Angeles could use the draft to add someone who can fill his role. While their main lottery pick is up in the air, they still have Houston’s first-round pick in their arsenal to add another potential wing player in the draft.

While a late first round pick is a crapshoot, Los Angeles has had success before, snagging Larry Nance Jr. in 2014 and Ivica Zubac in the early second round last year.

Villanova’s Josh Hart is probably the guy who can fill that role in the best. He doesn’t have the similar size to Young, restricting him to more of a pure shooting guard role.

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That said, he’s most likely a better defender than Young and he’s just as good of a shooter, knocking down 38.6 percent of his 532 three-point attempts in four collegiate seasons.

Hart is potentially a better playmaker, too, as he finished with more assists than turnovers in every season.

He doesn’t have as much upside as others in this class, but it makes him a perfect fit as a role player, maybe a potential starter if all breaks right.

For a team that has had several miscues on both sides of the ball and Walton openly frustrated about the lack of hustle, landing Hart could help soothe some of those issues.

The Lakers will probably move on from Young this offseason if he commands a large contract. If so, the Lakers will have several chances to replace him.

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If he stays in Los Angeles, though, it’ll be interesting to see how much he’s being paid, what role he’ll play and the moves Los Angeles makes to go with it.

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