The day before this summer’s WNBA All-Star Game, Jackie Young sat on stage and didn’t say a word for four minutes. Positioned to her left were security guards her Skylar Diggins-Smith and her Arike Ogunbowale, the trio grouped up for a joint press conference with reporters across from her Wintrust Arena in Chicago. rice field. Young did not speak up when journalists began asking questions.
“Jackie, I have to say something here,” Mercury guard Diggins-Smith told Young. “I have to say something”
Young, 24, admits to being naturally shy. Didn’t publicly enjoy being nominated. Rather, those who know Young best cite a quiet confidence.
“[Jackie’s] It’s never the loudest thing in the room,” Plum said of her teammates. “But you will feel her presence.”
Eric W. Lasko/Sports Illustrated
The Aces enter the WNBA postseason as the No. 1 seed and are set to begin their playoff berth against Mercury on Wednesday. This team probably has the most dangerous core in the league. 2020 Most Valuable Player Aja Wilson is one of his top contenders to earn the aforementioned honor, and like Young, guard Kelsey Plum, who was named an All-Star for the first time in July, said he’s not the only player to win the award. He is one of his top players in his W of the summer. , that too. Plum’s backcourt her partner, Chelsea Gray, is a US Olympian in Tokyo who has remained a steady force and has been named an All-Star twice when forward Dearika Humby is healthy. The right knee bruise will keep him out of two weeks to four weeks out of her. Match issues on both ends of the floor.
Then there’s Young, who likes Wilson and Plum was the number one pick in the draft. So far this season she has struggled to feel comfortable on the court. But now that she’s in her fourth year, her former vibrations rarely reappear. 3-Point Unlocked Young (a League Most Valuable Player favorite) with the confidence recently cultivated behind her arc could be the piece that propels Ace to her first WNBA title . “She’s not going to be the loudest in her room,” says Plum. “But you will feel her presence.”
Growing up in Princeton, Indiana, Young says he loved eating school lunches. Not because of her indelible taste, but because of her authenticity, she knew it was on offer every day. “It was hard,” the family said. [financially] Sometimes I had to deal with the lights in my house being turned off and wonder what my future meals would look like. So she says she shoveled as many chicken alfredos and tacos as she could at school.
Amid such uncertainty, Young says basketball provided her a “loophole.” Reaching her WNBA became her early aspiration because of her interest in the sport and the financial benefits it could provide to those around her.
Long before she played in the entertainment capital of the world, she practiced ballhandling on her backyard lawn. Partly because of her fights with her older brother Terrence, each year their makeshift court “was almost muddy,” she says.
In her first organized basketball experience, Young simply tried to fit in. She was 5 years old and in the coeducational Salvation Army League. Due to her strong desire to compete, she lied about her age on her registration sheet. “What I wanted to do [my brother] I did,” she says. But as Young got older, she made her own mark on the court. Following her senior year of high school, she was named Miss Basketball of Indiana, McDonald’s All-American, and Naismith National High School Player of the Year. was the top scorer for his gender.
In the classroom, however, Young remained humble and unassuming. Countless times she recalls what she thought to herself. Yes Yes. i knew that Once the correct response is shared out loud. Such a trend is why even today, when Young is at Hardwood in her WNBA, Ace coach Becky Hammon is urging her to speak out. “If you know her answer, say it,” Young says Hamon often tells her. “Help the team and tell them what you saw.”
After three seasons at Notre Dame, Young was declared in the 2019 WNBA Draft. Unlike some contemporaries in her rookie class, who knew her next step all year long, Young pretty suddenly made her decision 24 hours after Fighting Irish lost the national championship game to Baylor. I have decided to quit college. “I knew a year ago that if I could help her family, that’s what I was going to do,” she says.
As a child, she dreamed of being the first choice, but soon felt the external pressure that came with such a bill. Appeared in all 34 games in the starting line-up. Her 4.5 assists per game (still a career high) was a sign of her unselfishness, but she averaged just 6.6 points and her field goal percentage was just was 32.2% of
“It’s the curse of the No. 1 pick,” says Plum, the No. 1 pick in the 2017 draft. “Everybody wants to kill you, but you don’t know why.”
Over the next two seasons, Young made steady progress without a solid role. During his 2020 bubble season, then-coach Bill He Laimbeer took Young off the bench. Last year was Laimbeer’s final game with the team, but she returned to the starting lineup and played mostly off-ball on offense, largely as a result of Gray’s decision to join the franchise in free agency.
Shortly after taking the job of coaching Ace in January, Hammon called Young and explained how he planned to use her. Young was 11 short of total attempts in his rookie campaign, taking just 33 total over the past two seasons. Under Hamon, Ace’s attack now relies on extending the floor.
“Honestly, I think it was mental,” Young says of why he rarely took them. [Hammon], trusted her and knew what I needed to do. ”
The foundation that helped Young develop into a three-point threat was laid in Australia. She played last winter at the WNBL’s Perth Her Lynx alongside former Notre Dame teammate and WNBA Wings guard Marina Her Mabrey. Young was candid with Mabrey that she wanted to improve from her perimeter, and the fearless shooter had plans to help her teammates make it happen.
The two made a deal. “We agreed that she would help me in her room with weights. I would help her with shoots and such,” she says Mabrey. In late January, even when Mabrey was treating a leg injury, she supervised Young during workouts, often twice a day. There was a mix of deep and midrange jumpers. With Mabrey back in action, that number eventually increased to 1,500 per player per day, with Mabrey telling Young all the time about specific moves and the importance of staying aggressive. It reminded me.
“Jackie is one of them. She wants to be efficient and always wants to help the team, which is great,” says Mabrey. “But helping the team also means having confidence, whether the ball comes in or not.”
Young says there was a “mental block” he had to overcome to feel more comfortable shooting threes.
Eric W. Lasko/Sports Illustrated
Marsh, Ace’s assistant coach, joined the staff after recognizing Young’s size, aggression and athleticism. But he, too, saw an opportunity for her to grow from long distance. did. Marsh says the changes involved placing her ball on the right side of her face instead of in front of her, maintaining better balance, and finding a footwork that felt comfortable moving in any direction. , Young saw her work pay off immediately.
She didn’t attempt a 3 in the season opener against Mercury, but made multiple 3s in three of her next five games. “I think that gave her the momentum to keep what we’ve been working on and what she’s been working on,” says Marsh. Last season she attempted more than 30 threes, but this year she made at least two shots from the deep in 14 games.
Wilson believes the fact that her opponents have so far not protected Young from the outside “simmers inside her.” But no longer can the enemy pull Young away, and only Wilson can double him. Instead, they are often forced to force Young out of the three-point line and push her inside the arc in which she has always been prolific.
“With the threes, for some reason there was a kind of mental block there.
And that confidence opened up Young’s game. Opposing team’s best perimeter While continuing to defend her players, she posted career-highs in points averaged (15.9), rebounds (4.4) and three-point attempts (her 3.4 per game), with a 43.1% Shooting from deep.
“I’m at my best when I have a good mindset,” says Young. Heading into the postseason, she’s got just that.
While she’s still less pretentious than her fun-loving teammates, it’s no longer as assertive about her. “She’s very happy with who she is.”
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