Boro feels like home for Young
DURHAM, N.C. — The Nets franchise moved to Brooklyn a little over three years ago, but it took until this summer for one of its players to make the borough home. That player was Thaddeus Young, who signed a fouryear, $52 million contract in July and decided he wanted to get his family settled in the city before his son, T.J., started school this fall.
“I recall having a conversation with a few people and they were asking me about the commute, and it was brutal,” said Young, who has a condo in Brooklyn Heights. “Coming from Jersey trying to get to games, it was brutal.
“I would rather commute [to the team’s New Jersey facility] for practice, as opposed to going from Jersey all the way over to Barclays [for games].”
While some players, including former Net Mason Plumlee, had considered making the move before this summer, Young became the first to do it, and said he’s very much looking forward to the scheduled February completion of the team’s new practice facility on the waterfront in Industry City.
From then on, Young’s commute to practice will be dramatically shortened.
“I can’t wait,” Young said with a smile. “I hate long drives.
“It’s crazy [here], especially the traffic. The traffic is brutal here, but you get used to it, I guess.”
But while Young isn’t too far away from the arena, don’t expect to see him walking down Atlantic Avenue on game days.
“No, I will not walk to work,” Young said, drawing laughs. “I might take the little hoverboard, a Phunkee Duck … I might do one of those. But that still might take 15 minutes.
“But I’m going to pass on [walking].”
After thinking about it, though, Young — who is from Memphis — had another idea.
“I’ll get a Citi bike,” he said with a smile. “That’s what I’ll do. There’s one of those right outside my condo.
“I’m trying to get in the New Yorker spirit. Hopefully I’ll be able to call myself a New Yorker one day, but for now I’m still a Memphian.”
The Nets made it through the first day of training camp at Duke University without any injuries, but
Sergey Karasev still is working himself back into shape.
After spending the past several months rehabbing from the dislocated patella and torn MCL he suffered in his right knee in March, Karasev participated in two hours of Tuesday’s practice, sitting out the scrimmage portion, and said the opposite plan will be in place for him Wednesday.
“I still have another month before the season starts, so every day I just want to do a little more, then more and more,” he said.
“I don’t want to do two hard days in the beginning and then have my knee get sore, then take a day off. Just every day we can build off everything, and go from there.”