Los Angeles Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak spoke to Nick Young as media entered the facility during Tuesday's practice. This conversation, however, was not a discussion about basketball, his future or anything else that would be expected on a normal day. This was not a normal day.
While Young was leading his Lakers’ team to a rare victory over the Orlando Magic, his house was burglarized of jewelry, luggage, a laptop, and his shoes. One pair of shoes, in particular, hurt the Lakers’ star.
“Yea, they got me, man,” Young still managed a smile at Monday’s Lakers practice. “They stole my Yeezy’s too.”
The “Air Yeezy 2” limited edition Nike sneakers can cost upwards of $6,000 in the free market. Young had recently sported the pair to a Lakers’ game, and his love for the shoes was impossible to mask. During the pregame, he teased teammate Jordan Hill with the bright red footwear.
Including the shoes, Young was robbed of “almost $100k” according to the victim.
Young recalled that he came home and saw his drawers open and clothes all over the floor. He immediately ran down stairs in fear the perpetrators may still be in the house.
“I was just happy no one was in the house when they were breaking in.” The disbelief was still written all over his face, “I was just shocked they tried to get Swaggy yesterday.”
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Young often refers to himself by the nickname “Swaggy P.”
After coming home and calling the police, Young went to a hotel to sleep for the night. According to the player, the police were alerted at roughly 2:00 am Pacific Time, but no authorities arrived on the scene until nearly two to three hours later.
Young, however, was aware enough to understand what lay ahead. He still had to speak to police, fill out reports, fix the broken windows and get his locks changed.
Young confirmed that he had insurance, so all the stolen goods should be reimbursed, but those shoes seemed like they hit the basketball star extra hard. Still, he maintained a sense of humor about the whole situation and even asked the writer of this article if he stole his shoes. Naturally, the writer responded by instructing Young to speak to Hill about the incident.
Young said his teammates had been cracking jokes about it all day, so they were helping him deal with a troubling and shocking situation. Asked what he may do in the future to protect his home, Young clearly had not been able to think that far ahead as yet.
After a moment, he smiled, “I’ll get a guard dog or something.”
