Once you get a reputation in the NBA, it is very difficult to change it. Reporters and broadcasters will hammer that reputation down for their neat little stories. Coaches and general managers do not have the time to watch game tape or be around the player long enough to change perceptions. When a player with a bad reputation hits the market it stays with them — see the story of Rashad McCants.
This becomes especially tough for a young player forced into a situation he probably should not be in, stunting his growth in other areas. That is the situation Nick Young finds himself in as he prepares to hit free agency for the first time and plays out a contract year.
Young is probably most known throughout the league as a high-volume shooter for a losing franchise. That is the perception that he is carrying around with him. With career averages of 9.5 field goal attempts per game and 11.1 points per game to go with a career 48.3 percent effective field goal percentage, 23.5 percent usage rate and 12.8 PER, Young certainly fits the description of “scores points because he shoots too much.”
Young is trying to change that though. With unrestricted free agency, Young realizes he has to expand his game and show that he can be more than just a shooter to shed the perception that is all he can do — and, more importantly, all that he will do.
Young told Carla Peay of The Washington Times that he knows this is the knock on him and this is the label he has to shed to get what he wants in his first foray into the market.
“It’s like every year they say I can’t do this, I can’t do that, can’t defend. I just [wanted to] go out there and prove them wrong. I hope people see how hard I played on defense [Wednesday] night. I passed up couple of shots. I could have got a couple more shots off, [but] I was trying to be unselfish, trying to run the clock down a little bit. I try to bring something different to the table every night.”
Young is talking about his performance in Wednesday’s win over Oklahoma City. It was just Washington’s second win of the season, but a sign that the team has plenty of potential with John Wall, JaVale McGee and Nick Young as a young core.
Young, for his part, scored 24 points in that game. But, also feeding the perceptions about him, went 6 for 17 from the floor to get those 24 points. His defensive rating in that game, according to Basketball-Reference, was 104, the third best such rating for him this season. Durant still had 33 points in the game, but it was the Wizards who pulled out the win. Young deserves some credit for helping in that on the defensive end.
Obviously though, Young is a work in progress and it is going to take a string of strong defensive efforts and efficient scoring to shed the label that has attached to him.
There is no telling what kind of market Young will enter. He certainly will be looking for at least the mid-level exception, but the question is whether a team will see him as a role player who can fit in or someone who is going to take a lot of shots and be a high usage player.
It seems unlikely that contending teams will take the risk that Young has changed enough to fit in. Seeing as he is not an elite or an efficient scorer, it is tough to say what Young will fetch.
With that in mind, Young has to show he can do more than shoot and score to get the kind of deal he is probably looking for. Otherwise, Young’s reputation and the perception about his play is going to rule his free agency.
