First things first: Nick Young is the realest.
Young and pop-star girlfriend Iggy Azalea are the faces of Forever 21's holiday campaign, and in a video the fashion retailer released this week, Young did us all a favor with some timely and sage advice for our love lives.
While Young's dating advice is on point, his jump shot hasn't been - at least not through his first four games back from a thumb injury that cost him nine. Young is shooting just 36.4 percent from the floor and 30 percent on threes, averaging 11.3 points in 26 minutes but doing so inefficiently.
Young's return was supposed to be a boon for the Los Angeles Lakers offense, which has relied almost exclusively on Kobe Bryant so far. A gifted shooter and talented scorer, Young doesn't do much besides put the ball in the basket, but he did that very well last season.
The Lakers are hoping he'll regain his form quickly, and their strategy for helping the process along on Wednesday makes their game against Memphis a must-watch.
"Really going to try to force-feed (Young) a little bit more tomorrow, see if we can get him going early," head coach Byron Scott told reporters.
While overreacting to a four-game shooting sample probably isn't a sound strategy, force-feeding anyone against a defense like the Grizzlies' seems shortsighted. Memphis can throw Tony Allen, Courtney Lee and Tayshaun Prince at Young to disrupt him, and telling a shoot-first, shoot-second offensive player to shoot more is ... well, it's downright fun, is what it is.
It shouldn't take much convincing to get Young to fire away. Despite averaging just 23.8 minutes for his career, Swaggy P has taken at least 20 field goal attempts 29 different times, even cracking 25 on three occasions. Since entering the league in 2007-08, he ranks 41st in field goal attempts per 36-minutes, shooting every 138 seconds as a pro.
