Brooklyn Nets: Thaddeus Young Thriving Despite the Losing

The Brooklyn Nets are having a very tough season with the second-worst record in the Eastern Conference, but they do have some bright spots on their team.

Despite the losing, the Nets have received great play from their frontcourt of Brook Lopez and Thaddeus Young. Young is on pace to have one of his best seasons in the NBA, but losing has taken away from his individual success.

“I do bang my head on the wall sometimes,” Young said to Fred Kerber of the New York Post.

“We’ve been in a lot of close games. There have been a lot of tough ones,” said Young to Kerber. “It’s so tough to be in those games and there’s a few plays that keep you from winning.

The Nets have lost 14 games in which they either led, were tied or were within a basket in the fourth quarter, as losses like that can make a season a very difficult one.

“You look back on those games and you say, ‘What could I have done better? What could the team have done better?’ ” Young said Tuesday at the Nets’ East Rutherford practice facility to Kerber. “You look back at the game tape and you try to focus in on the positives and try to continue to do those things.”

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Young is doing his part as arguably the second best player on the team next to Brook Lopez, as a down season for Joe Johnson has resulted in Young having to pick up the slack on the offensive end. This season, Young is averaging 16.0 points, 9.3 rebounds, 1.5 assists, and 1.6 steals per game. The numbers for Young would likely get him some All-Star consideration if he was on a better team, but Young just wants to win.

“I [couldn’t] care less about stats,” Young said to Kerber. “My biggest thing is I just want to win basketball games, and that’s how I’ve been throughout the course of my career, just trying to win as many games as possible to help put my team in a position to where we can be successful. Obviously, it’s not happening this year, but no matter what, I’m still going to go hard, 110 percent.”

“I always feel I can do better. I always feel I can get better as a player,” Young said to Kerber. “I know this city wants to see the team win, but they also want to see us play hard. They want to see us go hard each and every day, and that’s what I plan to bring to the table, going hard.