Nick Young’s traffic stop and subsequent arrest for obstruction of justice is a bad look, but it’s unlikely to hurt his career on the court.
Late last night, according to TMZ, Nick Young found himself in an argument with the authorities during a traffic stop and was arrested for obstruction of justice.
And it probably doesn’t matter much at all.
The statute under which he’s likely been charged, California Penal Code section 148 subsection (a), doesn’t reference grading like most California statutes involving a crime, so there’s a decent chance that he’s looking at an infraction level offense. That, like other infraction level offenses of speeding, or broken tail lights, probably would not show up on a background check.
Even if it was a misdemeanor, the odds are pretty good that he’s never going to have to undergo another criminal background check in his life, and the actual immediate consequences are marginal to him — it’s a maximum fine of $1000. Instead, for most professional basketball players, the deterrent to stuff like this is the reputation hit costing them money on future contracts.
This isn’t anything teams didn’t know about Young already. Despite being one of the five best, if not the outright best free agent left on the market, Young already had a reputation as a knucklehead, ranging from the personal to the legal to stuff on the basketball court.
Any team that would be considering him knows already who he is, and knows what they are paying for at this stage of things, and so this incident, even if it does stick, won’t affect the basketball side of things at all.
That doesn’t excuse what happened away from the court. Young’s reputation is his wellbeing, and perhaps staying out of situations like this might benefit him in the future.