It’s 10am on a Tuesday when three-time WNBA champion Jackie Young arrives at the Raising Cane’s on the Las Vegas strip, and a line has already formed: fans adorned in Aces gear hoisting posters of Young’s face ahead of her collaboration with the national chain chicken outlet. For the better part of an hour, the gathered crowd snaked beyond the velvet rope that hinted at the event’s exclusivity and caused rubbernecking from the stream of ambitiously early-rising tourists along Vegas’ commercially lined thoroughfare. Flanked by security, Young’s celebrity betrays her presence before she reaches the storefront, and by the time she makes it to the façade, she’s enveloped by a chorus of cheers.
It’s become a Raising Cane’s staple, bringing athletes in after a career accomplishment and having them take a “shift” at the restaurant. It might be surprising to know that Young, whose workout regimen has become lore among the W’s online contingent, is an avid Cane’s visitor (complete with her own extra-toast-and-Cane’s-sauce-heavy order routine,as unearthed by Nekias Duncan at the team’s exit interviews). Before stepping behind the counter, Young endured a press conference with gathered reporters, including myself on behalf of Winsidr.
Young’s career arc has been fascinating to cover, from her vault up the draft boards to the no. 1 spot following Notre Dame’s all-timer of a title run to her early-career challenges to adjust and the year-over-year improvements to, now, a three-in-four-year stretch of WNBA championships in Las Vegas. In my mind, one of the (if not the) finest pieces of journalism ever put out by this website is the Jackie Young profile written by Owen Pence midway through her 2022 Most Improved campaign, when she ascended into becoming the perennial All-WNBA talent that’s now accepted and expected.
Young, steam wafting from the plate of chicken and fries before her, talked about that inflection point. “I would say playing in Australia was probably a turning point in my career,” she said. “I spent a lot of time in the gym over there. We’d wake up really early and go box, and then we would go to our actual gym and get our lift in, and then we’d have practice after. So yeah, that’s where I spent most of my time, and we’re overseas, so with the time change, you don’t talk to your family as much, so you have a lot of time to just work on yourself.”
That offseason, the Aces were coming off a heartbreaking Game Five semifinals loss to the Phoenix Mercury, but the team’s core had been established. Bill Laimbeer, the head coach and architect of that assembled talent, stepped aside, in an apparent understanding that his system of play had been eclipsed by the new three-heavy era of the W. In his place, Becky Hammon, who succeeded time and again (and again) in clearing that championship hurdle.
“Beck had just got the job, and so we sat on the phone, and her biggest thing was she just needed me to shoot threes,” Young said, reflecting back on that offseason in Australia. “She was like, ‘I just need you to shoot them. Maybe you make one a game. Who knows? But if you don’t attempt them, then we don’t ever know.’ And so, when I got back here, I got in the gym with Ty [Marsh], and we made a few tweaks to my shot, and that was the biggest difference. We didn’t do a whole lot, but we just got a lot of reps.”
Across her first three seasons, Young had attempted just 77 threes, making 22, a 28.6 percent clip. In 2022 alone, she knocked down 50 on 116 attempts, with that 43.1 percent good for third in the entirety of the WNBA.
Since the start of that 2022 season, Young has splashed 289 three-pointers, good for ninth in the league over that span. Among players with 150+ makes in that stretch, only Kelsey Mitchell (40.0 percent) and Bridget Carleton (39.0) have a higher long-ball percentage than Young (38.7 percent). Young, whose pull-up three has become a staple in Vegas’ transition offense, has ranked between second and 14th in fast break points over the past four seasons. This dynamic evolution to her game has been crucial in spacing the floor around A’ja Wilson, and a catalyst for the first dynasty in the WNBA since the Minnesota Lynx dominated a decade ago.
The Big Three 🦾
See Also
Jackie Young, A’ja Wilson & Chelsea Gray were crucial in the @LVAces Game 2 win yesterday.
Young: 32 PTS | 8 REB | 3 3PM ◾️ Scored 21 PTS in the 3Q which marks the MOST EVER in an individual quarter of a WNBA Finals game
Despite hersilent-but-rings-loud reputation, Young smoothly navigates the back end of Raising Cane’s like she’s attacking a slanted defense, moving from kitchen to sweet tea to customer like a pro. She’s got a smile for everyone and good humor (“Fast service,” Young quips, as she hands off a pre-prepared box combo to a customer at the front of the line). She has found comfort in her local celebrity, and that’s a credit to this Las Vegas community that has embraced Young over her seven years representing the city. With Young and Wilson still firmly in their primes, that fame will only continue to grow.
