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The NBL, if we are to believe Sam Young’s agent, has a new highest-paid player – and another talent with the NBA on his resume, at that.
Young is a swingman who spent the last four years in the NBA, most recently as part of the Indiana Pacers team that made the Eastern Conference Finals.
Yesterday, news emerged that he’d be joining the Sydney Kings.
Drafted by the Memphis Grizzlies in 2009, Young’s career on Beale Street peaked in the 2010-11 season, where he started due to Rudy Gay’s injury, including during the playoffs.
He had a brief stint at Philadelphia before heading to Indiana where, while he averaged 2.8 points and 2.2 rebounds, his main role was as a defensive player on the wings.
He averaged eight minutes a game in the playoffs.
Sydney, to accommodate Young as one of their imports, have moved on Jesse Sanders according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
Already, the league is using this signing to foreshadow the introduction of a marquee player rule in future seasons.
The counter argument here is that you don’t ordinarily bring over a defensive stopper as your marquee guy. Plus, the Kings have just replaced their point guard with a non-point guard, leaving an important void.
But firstly, we’ll have to wait and see what Young can deliver when given more freedom than what’s usually afforded an NBA role player.
Secondly, it’s impossible to ignore the fact that Young seems like the kind of guy who genuinely wants to use Australia – and the coaching of a former NBA player in Shane Heal – to work his way back to the big time.
How can we tell? It’s in his history.
Before his senior year of college at Pittsburgh, he literally lived at his university’s practice facility.
From the Memphis Commercial Appeal: “He walked to a back corner of the locker room and inflated his bed. Young lived there for a month, the idea being that he could work out whenever he so chose.
“Foul shots after breakfast? Laps for lunch? Outside jumpers before dinner? It was the sort of monastic lifestyle that suited Young, who described basketball as his ‘love’ and his girlfriend as his ‘mistress’.”
Joe Lombardi, a former assistant at Pitt, spoke of his determination.
“He has been on a mission to prove people wrong his entire life,” Lombardi said.
In addition, since college Young has been in two locker rooms – at Memphis and Indiana – renowned for their emphasis on work ethic.
Now, that doesn’t mean we’ve got a James Ennis Mk II on our hands. He may not be that at all. He may, even, be more than that (a few months ago he was guarding LeBron James in the Eastern Conference Finals!).
What we can tell is that the NBL has attracted yet another fringe NBA player that in recent times may have headed elsewhere.
His agent Joel Bell told RealGM: “Sam had other options, but this one made the most sense and will pay him as the highest player in the league.”
Like with Ennis, Young will have an NBA out clause that would allow him to return to the US should he attract interest.
Assuming he stays, though, this is going to make the Kings a hard team to beat. Heal now has a team that revolves around AJ Ogilvy, Ben Madgen and Sam Young.
Regardless of the point guard situation, that puts them firmly in the finals picture.