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Jacob Young is trying to right Oregon’s ship in Eugene and finding inspiration from older brother Joe, who is back from China and trying to grind his way back to the NBA.
(Photo of Jacob Young from Eric Evans/GoDucks.com)
EUGENE — The energy had mostly left Matthew Knight Arena.
Earlier, Oregon had the crowd buzzing with a 10-point lead over No. 1 Baylor. But Oregon’s attempt to put a charge in its season evaporated in the second half, and in the dying moments fans began to head for the aisles. The thinning attendance made Dana Altman’s voice from the sideline echo all the louder, with the 12th-year Oregon coach barking out commands to a pressing Oregon defense. The late-December game was all but over, but with the season Oregon’s had, Altman could certainly build off keeping this loss to single digits.
The Bears led by 13 with 3:37 to play. The game ended 78-70, with Oregon’s Jacob Young scoring seven of his 11 points in the final three minutes.
It had been a challenging year for Young, the younger brother of former Oregon Pac-12 player of the year Joe Young. He arrived in Eugene this summer after two years at Texas and another pair at Rutgers. It was after he played a role in the Scarlet Knights’ first NCAA Tournament appearance in 31 years that he got a call from Altman seeing if he wanted to finish his career like his brother.
Oregon’s transformed into a perennial Sweet 16 threat since Joe’s time with the Ducks, and Jacob always appreciated Altman’s coaching style. Altman was hard on Joe, always pushing him to be better. Back when crowds were sparse at MKA, Altman’s pleas for “Joe!” to get back on defense echoed through the arena.
And there’s been plenty of “Jacob!” in this season’s opening months. The experience of Young (121 career games before Oregon) and fellow transfers De’Vion Harmon (68 games) and Quincy Guerrier (60 games) was supposed to carry Oregon after losing first-round pick Chris Duarte and three others from the starting lineup. But the season’s first two months saw the Ducks largely out of sync. In some instances they were competitive in last-second losses. In others, the Ducks were simply blown out of the gym.
So with the Ducks still within spitting distance of Baylor, Altman kept his foot on the pedal. He kept on Young, who pushed himself up and down the court until a smile curled across his face standing next to a huffing Baylor guard. There was a minute left. But if Jacob’s learned one thing from his brother, he knows the grind never stops.
(Joe Young at the 2015 Pac-12 Tournament, Courtesy ESPN)
Joe Young lives in Alabama now. And if that seems out of the way, consider he moved there after spending the last three seasons in China.
It’s been six years since Young averaged 19.8 points, 4.5 rebounds and 3.7 assists to lead Oregon to a surprise NCAA Tournament berth in 2015. He hit buzzer-beaters against Arizona State and Washington during the regular season, and his heave from the logo against Utah in the Pac-12 tournament sent the Ducks to the conference final in Las Vegas. His college career ended with 30 points against No. 1-seed Wisconsin in a gutsy second-round NCAA Tournament loss.
He smiled throughout his final interview as a Duck.
“I might shed some tears, but I’m a lot older than just crying,” Young said then. “No, I already overcame it. It’s sad, but at the same time, I hope they learned from it.”
The “they” Young referred to was Oregon’s young core of Dillon Brooks, Jordan Bell and Casey Benson, a trio who developed into key pieces of Oregon’s Final Four run two seasons later. Young was in the NBA by then, a second-round selection of the Indiana Pacers in 2015 who averaged 3.4 points in 127 games over the next three seasons.
Out of the league in 2018 when the Pacers didn’t pick up his fourth-year option, Young found himself heading to China with two goals: to put some money in his pocket — he signed a $1.3 million contract with Nanjing Tongxi Basketball Club — and to establish himself again as a scorer.
And boy did he score.
Young averaged 36.1 points with Nanjing in his first year and 38.3 points the next, including a seven-game stretch to close out the season where he averaged 55 points and topped out at 74. Young said he watched highlights from Kobe Bryant’s 2006 81-point performance against Toronto the night before that one.
“I shoot my first four and they go in, then for the fifth one it feels like there’s a magnet on the ball going from your finger to the rim,” he said. “Everything I threw up there was connecting. I had 45 at the half. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t get to 81. But 74 isn’t bad.”
In Young’s final season in China he made $3.1 million to play for Beijing Royal Fighters under coach Stephon Marbury, a former NBA all-star guard who became a megastar in China after winning three CBA championships.
“I had it good,” Young said. “When you put up numbers like that in a place like that, I felt like LeBron out there. That’s how much energy I was getting.”
But Young’s wife and three-year-old son were back in the States. He’s 29 now and wanted to be more of a presence, and to hopefully give his son a chance of growing up with memories of a father in the NBA.
“I was with Marbury earlier this year and he was like, ‘Son, you’re too good. You need to fight to get back in the league,’” Young said. “And I know it’s not going to be easy. But I have the skills and the mindset.
“I’m here.”
Jacob called Joe a few months ago looking for some advice.
Oregon was off to a slow start, with a 29-point loss to Houston and a 32-point loss to BYU deflating the tires of a team with reasonably high expectations.
Harmon (Oklahoma), Guerrier (Syracuse) Young (Rutgers) had all played major minutes at big-time programs. The Ducks had a recruiting class that included Nate Bittle, the No. 27 player in the country. And sure, Duarte (17.1 ppg), LJ Figueroa (12.3 ppg) and Eugene Omoruyi (17.1 ppg) were all leaving, but the return of Will Richardson to the starting lineup seemed to be enough to hold the roster together until Altman really got his hands into it.
But it wasn’t working. So Jacob asked Joe what to do.
The eldest Young advised his brother to get in some time with younger players on the team, to get to the gym earlier — even if it’s just to get up shots. And he told him to make some time for meals together.
“Once you’re cooking together you can do anything on the court,” Joe said.
He meant it. During his last year at Oregon, he hosted meals at his apartment that served as bonding time for a team that was projected to finish eighth in the Pac-12 by the media and ended up making the NCAA Tournament. And in his first few weeks with Birmingham in the G League, Young took it upon himself to take his young teammates out to eat regularly.
“We’re getting this team dialed in. We’re bonding. It comes from gathering off the court,” he said in early December. “The goal is to come in here, develop, be a leader for these young guys and get some wins, man. And show that I’m a high-level guard.
“I’m only at 45 percent right now. I still have another 55 percent to go.”
And while that’s a very Joe Young thing to say, he’s also following it up in ways only Joe Young can. Birmingham closed out 2021 with six consecutive wins, with Young capping the streak with his most complete game of his return: 30 points (12 of 22), 7 rebounds and 3 assists. With NBA rosters thinned due to Covid, three Birmingham players have been called up in the last two weeks. Young is still waiting for his turn.
“I love this game and I want to be back in the NBA,” he said. “And I will sacrifice for that.”
Jacob is different from Joe in some ways.
For one: He’s left-handed. He also likely won’t be posting videos of himself dancing or sleeping in the gym to his social media accounts, like Joe did during his second year with the Pacers.
“I grind just like Joe,” Jacob says. “I do all the things he does, staying up until five in the morning and that stuff. I do that. I just don’t promote it as much as he does.”
He watches Joe, though, the way he has since Joe rose through Houston’s basketball ranks and led Yates High to a perfect 34-0 record and No. 1 U.S. ranking as a senior.
“I was his biggest fan,” Jacob said. “Always.”
Jacob had love for Joe’s game, sure. But it was the way Joe battled his way through his college — beginning at Houston and ending his career at Oregon — and professional careers that’s been a guiding light.
Coming out of high school as the No. 106 player in the country, the timing didn’t work out initially for Jacob to come to Oregon. He ended up at Texas, and then moved from Texas to Rutgers, where he averaged 14.1 points and 3.4 assists last year as the Scarlet Knights advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1991.
“I started having fun again,” he said. “At Rutgers I was smiling and enjoyed being around the game. It was back to how it felt coming into college. Nothing against UT. It just wasn’t the right spot.”
As soon as Rutgers lost 63-60 in the second round of the Tournament, Jacob got a call from Altman. Jacob was considering testing the NBA waters, but Altman gave him a pitch similar to the one he gave Joe years earlier. Altman saw the 6-foot-3 guard as a key piece who could help the Ducks win now. He also saw things to work on in his game.
“He said there were things that I could tighten up and I said, ‘Why not?’” Jacob said. “I’ve known him. I know he wants the best for me. My brother went here and you only get one more chance to do this.”
Oregon is showing life. The Ducks won 68-59 last week against Pepperdine. And when down Saturday to Utah, Jacob matched the defensive intensity he showed late against Baylor, keying a run that turned a nine-point deficit into a 13-point victory.
His 22-points were a season high, with 13 points, four assists and three steals in the game’s final 18 minutes.
“Our energy level was so much better,” Altman said. “…Obviously Jacob had a couple of big plays and got us going in transition and our energy level got way up because of the defense.”
The Ducks are 8-6, 1-2 in Pac-12 play and rapidly approaching the time of the year where Jacob has seen Altman pull off miracles. Joe’s Ducks were once 2-3 in conference play in 2015, then the Ducks closed with 13 wins in their final 16 games to clinch a tournament berth.
Jacob was watching then. He knows what comes next.
“Like my brother keeps on pushing,” he said, “I’m just going to keep on pushing.”
— Tyson Alger
