NBLC Alumni: Kevin Young
6'8
Forward From Riverside, California
Tenure: 2014-15
2015 DPOY
1xAll-NBLC
Sometimes the legacy of a basketball player can be defined by a single season - a prime example of this being Kevin Young. He played just one NBL Canada season that was so spectacular, his status as a star is able to stand on that alone.
Finishing at Perris High School with an All-Division selection, six 20-point games and three triple-doubles, Young was recruited to the Loyola Marymount Lions. He set freshman year records in rebounding, blocks and steals and went on to set more as a sophomore.
In between these seasons he represented Puerto Rico at the FIBA Under-19 World Championships, recording a double-double of 18 points and 12 rebounds in their first game, a 80-73 win over Lithuania. The team went on to reach the quarter finals where they lost to Croatia and, at the end of the classification round, finished the tournament in sixth place overall.
In 2011, Young left Loyola for the Kansas Jayhawks, where took on the role of sixth man and played for the team in the final of the NCAA Division 1 tournament, college basketball's biggest game. Unfortunately they could not capture the title, losing 76-59 to the Kentucky Wildcats.
After his senior year, where he again played in the NCAA tournament but going no further than the fourth round, he turned professional and started plying his trade in Central America.
After stints with Xalapa in Mexico and Brujos de Guayama in Puerto Rico, as well as winning basketball bronze with Puerto Rico in the 2014 Central American and Caribbean Games, Young moved further north, joining up with his first NBL Canada outfit.
Young signed with the Halifax Rainmen and started the regular season leading his new team in rebounds, with 13 in a 110-102 win over the Saint John Mill Rats. At the end of the regular season he had twenty games where he scored in double-digits and had six successive games where he recorded a double-double.
His season-best came against the Moncton Miracles on February 1st, 2015, where he scored 32 points, grabbed 14 total boards and dished 9 assists in a close win for Halifax, 103 points to 101.
With 17.4 points and 8.8 rebounds per game, he was named the Defensive Player of the Year and selected for the All-NBLC First Team. A suspension handed to him for involvement in the 2015 finals brawl would mean it would be his only one (to date).
Unable to return to Halifax, Young rejoined Guayama in Puerto Rico before entering the 2015 NBA D-League Draft, where he was chosen seventeenth overall by the Bakersfield Jam. Later traded to the Maine Red Claws, he played fourteen games before journeying back to Puerto Rico, where he played two seasons with Mayagüez and one with Cariduros de Fajardo.
In 2018 he sought a return to the NBA feeder league and was claimed off waivers by the Santa Cruz Warriors. For the 2018-19 season he played 41 games with the Warriors, starting in three, where he averaged 4.1 points and 4.8 rebounds per game.
He began the following season with Santa Cruz before making the move to the Stockton Kings, for whom he started ten times in 35 appearances and improved on the season prior with 6.3 scoring and 5.1 rebounding averages.
So Kevin Young's time in the NBL Canada was short, but definitely sweet. Seeing what he was able to do in one season may have provoked wishes of more from him in Canada, but then again why sully a faultless NBLC record?
