Winning trumps all for Eagles captain

East Perth Eagles captain Taylor Young might have found the destination he plans on calling his forever home, but as the ultimate competitor it's winning that trumps everything on the basketball court.

Young is now in his third season in the NBL1 West at the Eagles and in his second as captain at East Perth while it's now a ninth season all up in Australia with him having a brief stint in Melbourne before six years in Queensland, and now being in a third season out west.

Wherever he has played, Young has been the ultimate team player equally proficient at putting up big individual numbers as a scoring guard who can drive and shoot or to be the playmaker and run his team's offence and get his teammates the right looks.

Young is fresh off putting up 17.0 points, 5.6 assists and 4.1 rebounds a game while shooting 51 per cent from the field to lead the Eagles back to finals for the first time in a decade in 2024, and now wants to lead them even further in 2025.

However, losses sit with Young worse than anything so last Friday's first up home loss for the Eagles to the Rockingham Flames is something he can't wait to try to put right this Saturday on the road to the defending champion Mandurah Magic.

"It might turn out to be a bit of a blessing in disguise because it kinda highlighted some of our weak points that we needed to work on, which I think we've already started to do this week after we went back and looked at the film," Young said.

"We have already started implementing that in practice and the coaches were happy with how we've gone about that, and now we have to put all those things together and put it on the floor down in Mandurah on Saturday, which I think we're capable of and I'm confident we'll do that.

"The L sucked and it took me a while to calm down from it, but I do think we learned from it as a collective and we'll be better come Saturday night."

Building on making finals last year

It had been a long decade for the Eagles after winning the 2014 SBL championship with Adam Forde as coach to then not make the finals once again until last year when things started to come together with Carl Filpo as coach and Young as captain.

Along with Young, Lee Roberts, Sharif Watson and Nic Filpo are among the returnees with new imports Max Rice and Matthew Lang along with Ioannis Dimakopoulos, Chier Maker and the returning Fabian Johnson also on deck.

Young's faith in the group isn’t dented after one loss and he is confident that with the culture build that started last year, things can come together impressively in 2025.

"This is my third year here and in that first year we were mediocre even though we did get it together a little bit late, and that catapulted into last season where Sunday (Dech) coming back helped to set things up for us," Young said.

"I want to say Sunday set the standard of the specific culture Carl was trying to put in of everyone holding each other accountable, and then when he left we were able to hold that standard together.

"In some ways we even took a step further forward and granted we did lose to Rockingham in the finals, but it was a big step to get back there for the first time since the last banner.

"Now there's an expectation of where we should be and where we need to be, and we will hold each other accountable after the standards we started setting last year. We feel coming into this year that we have the roster to be top four or better and that's what our expectations are."

Being captain again in 2025

Young will be the first to admit that he's not the obvious choice as a captain because he is a player who rather leads by example than being outspoken, but now as a 34-year-old veteran he is embracing the leadership role and learning to speak up in the right ways more.

Being captain at the Eagles is an honour he doesn’t take lightly but ultimately knowing that his sole focus is on doing whatever it takes to help East Perth win and to continue to grow that culture is a good way to start.

"Scoring and having a big statistical night is always great but I live and die by winning. Winning means so much more than any individual goals and if the team is doing well," Young said.

"Even if your stats aren’t 25 points or whatever, and instead you are having 15-5-5 or 10-6-5 with good percentages and your +/- is good and you are winning, then that's when you stand out more.

"Me being here for a third year now, as a leader I'm trying to preach is that doing your best for the betterment of the team to help us win will count more than anything you can do. Just playing your role for the team whatever it is has to be everybody's focus which is what will lead us to success.

"We have these key words every week that Desi wants us to focus on that we came up with before the season, and this week it's accountability and discipline.

"Last week we didn’t do either very well and it's something that we can quickly fix to hold everyone accountable and being disciplined by sticking to your role and to the scout.

"I'm still learning to be a leader because last year was first year doing it when Bobby was injured, and I'm trying to do it my way the best I can because I'm more of a lead by example person."

Settling in Australia

Young had no idea what to expect when he first arrived in Australia back in 2016 and the first experience with Dandenong wasn’t too great, but once he got to Queensland that's when he fell in love with the country.

Young spent time playing at the Rockhampton Rockets, Gladstone Port City Power, Townsville Heat and then the South West Metro Pirates in 2022 before heading across the country to come to East Perth in 2023.

After some European experiences both in terms of lifestyle and basketball that didn’t come close to stacking up to Australia, he is in no doubt he has found his home and even not has his permanent residency to be playing in the NBL1 as a local.

"The main thing is the way you guys treat athletes for the most part at least in my experience," Young said.

"I haven’t been belittled or talked down upon for having a bad day, except for once actually, but I've been playing out here since 2016 and haven’t had a bad experience for the most part on or off the court.

"The way I'm treated is what keeps me coming back here and I like the lifestyle, it's peaceful and you guys are pretty laidback and chill. That's kinda me to a tee so it's like a match made in heaven for me.

"As soon as I got to Rockhampton, I told my mum that even when I stop playing I don’t want to go back home and I want to stay here. I've played in Europe in different countries and back in America, and this is my favourite place to be and it's not close."

Beyond playing days

While Young still hopes to have several years left in his playing career, he has no doubt that he will continue to live in Australia even once he does hang up the boots and Perth is the most likely destination he'll settle.

"This is home for me, I don’t see myself going anywhere else. I've told all my family that I'll go back to visit and they can come out to see me, but don't expect me to move back home," Young said.

"I think after this year depending on what shakes, I'm going to see if I can crack the NBL because I can play as a local or I might try to play in Europe somewhere to play in the off-season because I'm able to come straight back here now.

"But if none of that happens or I change my mind, I might just go back to see my mum and family, because at the end of the day I'm a momma's boy. I talk to her every day so if I don’t play somewhere else once this season is done, I'll go back to see her before coming back here next year."