What did you expect Trae Young’s first recorded statistic to be as a member of the Washington Wizards? Probably a point, right? Maybe an assist since he was brought in to help set up his younger teammates. If you were going with a sleeper, you’d probably pick a stray rebound or steal. Alas, it was none of the above. Before his first point, assist or even game as a member of the Wizards, Trae Young has picked up his first ejection in the nation’s capital.
The unusual sequence of events came in the third quarter of Washington’s home loss to Houston on Monday. Rockets forward Tari Eason, walking up the court, shoved Wizards guard Jamir Watkins to the ground, but no foul was called. A foul eventually came when the action shifted to the other side of the court, and the two teams needed to be separated. Technical fouls were called on four players: Eason, Watkins, Sharife Cooper … and Young.
So, how did Young manage to get ejected from a game he wasn’t even playing? He walked onto the floor during the altercation to argue with an official. NBA rules are very clear about players coming off of the bench during scuffles. It is not allowed, and we have multiple controversial playoff suspensions over the years to show how seriously the NBA takes it when a player does so.
Young seemed to take the ejection in stride, sharing a laugh about what happened on Twitter while assuring Wizards fans not to expect many more of them in his future.
Despite the rarity of this sort of ejection, it still isn’t the most notable tossing of Young’s career. Last season, he picked up a technical foul in the Play-In Tournament for throwing the ball at an official, and then quickly got a second for kicking the ball and was ejected late in the fourth quarter of a decided loss to the Orlando Magic. After that game, referee James Williams explained that Young was ejected for making “a mockery of the game.”
If nothing else, this ejection was a whole lot more defensible than that one was. Young didn’t get tossed for losing his temper on the court, but for defending his teammate from off of it. With his Wizards debut coming on Thursday, he probably earned some valuable credit in Washington’s locker room for getting a kicked out of a game he wasn’t even playing in.
