New Laker Nick Young will be playing for his fifth team in seven seasons. (GETTY IMAGES)

There’s an old saying that you can’t go home again. Well, Nick Young is coming home to play for the Los Angeles Lakers this season to ultimately add some depth to their bench, a weakness for the Lakers last season.

Young played high school basketball at Cleveland High in Reseda —played against current teammate Jordan Farmer at San Fernando Valley rival Taft — and was a dominant player, but no one saw him as a future basketball pro.

Young averaged 27.2 points and 10.8 rebounds per game while showing an amazing outside shot (46.8%) in 2004. He went on to attend USC and helped the Trojans make the Sweet 16 before losing to top-seed North Carolina in his junior season. He declared for the draft and was selected by the Washington Wizards with the 16th overall pick.

He will be playing for his fifth team in his seventh NBA season and has some serious motivation to revive his career after languishing on the bench with the Philadelphia 76ers last season.

“I just felt like I needed this opportunity,” Young told ESPN after signing with the Lakers in July. “Over the past couple of years, I feel like I’ve been getting disrespected a little bit out there and I feel with this stage the Lakers set, with the opportunity for playing time here, I can get my name back out there and get the respect I deserve. I did this for myself, really.”

Young will be crucial to the Lakers’ chances for early success this year. With Kobe Bryant healing from an Achilles injury, Young (a 6-foot-6 swingman) is all but a lock to be start at shooting guard or small forward, and they’ll need him to help replace some of Kobe’s scoring.

Pau Gasol and Steve Nash are proven veterans, but Young still has a lot to prove. He has earned a reputation for being just a scorer and that’s it. The book on Young is he doesn’t play defense, doesn’t pass or rebound. And Young knows this.

“To get out there on the floor, I need to do the other things too [defend and rebound],” said Young, who turns 28 in June. ” I feel I can do those things. I’m still learning. I ain’t reached my potential yet. There’s things I just need to pick up along the way.”

L.A. will need him to score and do it efficiently, something he hasn’t always done. He is just a career 42.7% shooter, but his 37.4% 3-point shooting is going to be a welcome addition.

Young has averaged 11.3 points over his career in just 23 minutes per game as a backup. His 36-per-minute averages (17.7) show he is capable of replacing some of Kobe’s production offensively, and that is something that is desperately needed since Kobe may be out until December or January.

Young’s career high was 17.4 points per game (converting 44.1% from the field and and 38.7% of his threes) in 2010-11 with the Wizards when he made a career-high 40 starts (played in 64 games). So, the potential is there for him to have a huge season.

Playing with his idol, Kobe, was also a big draw for Young to return to L.A.

“Growing up in L.A., Kobe was my idol, really,” Young said. “Just to have an opportunity to step on the court and pick his brain and see how he carries himself day-in and day-out, that’s going to be big for me.”

Laker fans are going to be praying Young can do his best Kobe impersonation on the court so that L.A. doesn’t have to rely on a couple aging veterans to carry the offensive workload. For Young, it’s a shot at redemption and to prove to the rest of the league he can still play the game and maybe earn himself one last big payday.

Darren Jacks is a regular contributor to OneManFastBreak.net. Follow him on Twitter @djroxalot.

It’s time for Blake Griffin and the Los Angeles Clippers to make the leap into the upper echelon of the Western Conference. (GETTY IMAGES)

The Clippers are tired of being the other team in Los Angeles.

They traded for Chris Paul before last season, but it wasn’t enough. Not after Chauncey Billups was lost for the season with a serious injury when he tore his left Achilles tendon in February.

So, they went out and upgraded the bench and adding some scoring punch. Jamal Crawford was added to back up Billups and provide some insurance in case he continues to break down physically. The team acquired veterans Grant Hill and Lamar Odom to provide some frontcourt depth. In other minor moves, Ronny Turiaf and Ryan Hollins, as well as former Laker Matt Barnes, were added to the roster.

Barnes is expected to compete for minutes as a backup small forward, and Willie Green as a backup shooting guard.

Crawford was the best pickup as he gives the Clippers a talented shooter that will help Paul, so he doesn’t have to try and do too much offensively like he has had to do his entire career (mostly with the Hornets).

Paul should be able to focus on running the offense and scoring when he sees an opportunity. Billups gives them a second floor general at shooting guard who can pick his spots to launch his shots and also run the offense at times. But at his age, he needs to choose his spots more carefully. The man can still play some ball when healthy though.

Caron Butler has more help at SF and that should save wear and tear on him. Blake Griffin is recovering from an injury he suffered during the Olympics, but he should be ready for the start of the season. However, he needs to develop his offensive game in order for the Clippers to become a special team capable of taking over L.A. from the Lakers.

Center DeAndre Jordan, who was given a crazy $51 million contract before last season, provides defense and rebounding. If he could develop an offensive game, the Clippers would be a deadlier team with more offensive options than just Griffin, CP, Billups and Crawford.

So what does all this mean for the Clippers? They need to try and win so Paul is enticed to stay in Los Angeles and sign long-term extension (he turned down a three-year deal worth $60 million in July) rather than leave and go to another team. That’s the trendy thing to do lately and Paul isn’t above that. No elite player is.

The man on the hot seat is head coach Vinny Del Negro. The Clippers helped save his job by beating the Memphis Grizzlies in the first round of the postseason, but the pressure will be on to get better and to advance to the Western Conference finals.

That has to be the expectation with all the money Donald Sterling has doled out. Sterling is a Scrooge when it comes to handing out big contracts, but lately he has spent the kind of money that leads to high expectations. Del Negro has to be happy that they are adding depth, but it puts the pressure squarely on his shoulders to make this work. Owners find it much easier to fire a coach than the 12-15 players on the roster if they don’t perform up to the expectations.

Lets see how good of a coach you are, Vinny.

Projected finish in Pacific Division: Second.

Darren Jacks is a regular contributor to OneManFastBreak.net. Send him an email at: djroxalot@hotmail.com.

Matt Barnes has played for eight teams in nine seasons. (GETTY IMAGES)

Matt Barnes is staying in Los Angeles, but it won’t be with the Lakers. He is crossing the hallway at Staples Center to play for the Clippers after agreeing to a one-year deal with the other team  in the City of Angels.

Barnes, who is 32 years old, started his career with the Clippers. He played for the Clippers in 2003-04, averaging 4.5 points per game. The former UCLA standout has played for eight teams in nine seasons: the Clippers, Sacramento Kings, New York Knicks, Philadelphia 76ers, Golden State Warriors, Phoenix Suns, Orlando Magic and the Lakers for the last 2 seasons.

He has a reputation as a solid defender and decent scorer off the bench. He led the L.A. bench with 7.8 points per game and averaged 9.7 points over the final 10 games of the 2011-12 regular season.

But his play on the court has often been overshadowed by his reputation off the court. This summer, he was arrested in Manhattan Beach for a misdemeanor traffic ticket (driving with a suspended license) and threatening a police officer. He was arrested in 2010 on an alleged domestic violence incident, but was never prosecuted.

On the court, he has been called a dirty player for incidents ranging from throwing punches to slinging assistant coaches to the floor. But, apparently it didn’t detract the Clippers from signing him.

Darren Jacks is a contributor to OneManFastBreak.net. Send him an email at djroxalot@hotmail.com.