(AP)

Never in his career has Thaddeus Young attempted and made more 3-pointers in a single season – and he’d like to keep it that way.

While dealing with so much change – like five coaches in his seven pro seasons – Young would like one thing to stay the same. Namely, he’d appreciate Sixers coach Brett Brown continuing to give him the freedom to roam near the 3-point line.

“I think I was capable of it before,” Young said after Tuesday’s practice. “It was just one of those things where I’ve always been a player where, when a coach needs something or asks me to do something, I go out there and do it. I fulfill a job. 

“With Coach (Doug) Collins, he didn’t want me shooting a lot of 3s. He wanted me in the paint, getting extra possessions, hustling, make open shots. He told me actually, ‘Treat the 3-point line like a barbed-wire fence.’ I didn’t like that at all, but I went out there and fulfilled the job. This year, Brett said to me he wanted me to step out and shoot 3s, to put the ball on the floor, get to the basket, and do everything. I was like, ‘Perfect. I can get back to playing how I was before Coach Collins, before Eddie Jordan.’ My first two years in the league were free-flowing.”

Young is shooting 32.1 percent (83-for-258) from beyond the arc, with his makes and attempts from the 3-point line representing career-high figures. In the three seasons prior, under Collins, Young collectively shot 8-for-34 from the arc.

In his second and third seasons, Young had shown an ability to take and make shots from long range, before having to reel it in under Collins. During the 2008-09 season, with Maurice Cheeks and Tony DiLeo splitting the season, Young shot 56-for-164. A season later, under Jordan, Young went 48-for-138 from the 3-point line.

(AP)

Upon arriving in Philadelphia, Nick Young had two items on his agenda.

He had to undergo an MRI on his left knee, which turned up news that the Los Angeles Lakers guard stands to miss at least the next two weeks. Then, Young went to the King of Prussia Mall. Since Young, who played for the 76ers last season, cannot play against his old team Friday, he opted for the next best thing.

“I want to go out there and play against them, talk some trash to Spencer (Hawes) and Evan (Turner) and Thad (Young) and have some fun. That’s the downside,” Young said. “But I went and got a suit jacket because I still want to be out there and talk some trash. I’m looking forward to it.”

Young came to Philly under the auspices of a season that never came to fruition. He, Dorell Wright and Jason Richardson were brought aboard as shooters with which the Sixers would surround Andrew Bynum. But Bynum, beset by knee injuries, never played. And Young, who was given a one-year, $5.6 million deal, never lived up to the expectations created by his financially bulky contract.

The Los Angeles native, Young took a one-year contract worth $1.1 million from the Lakers. He has a player option for next season that he’s likely to pick up.

“Being able to play at home and for the Lakers is great,” said Young, who’s out for at least two weeks with a non-displaced fracture of his left knee cap. “I was seeing my options, but I was looking at the Lakers and the opportunity that was going to be there for me. Playing for them and being home, I couldn’t ask for better.”

Young has experienced a career renaissance with the Lakers, for whom he’s averaging 16.9 points (second behind Pau Gasol) on 41.9 percent shooting.

With the Sixers, under Doug Collins, he was an on-again, off-again personality. He was Swaggy P, an affable, congenial player who was always smiling. Some days, he was liked. Others, he was not. Some days, he was playing in crunch time and contributing. Others, he was coming off the bench only when the game was out of reach.

“Philly was good. It had its ups and downs,” Young said. “Obviously I wish I played more. But the city and how they embraced the Swaggy P Movement, I didn’t know they were going to be big on it, but they enjoyed it.”

Young played only eight of his final 25 games last season with the Sixers. The other 17 were DNP-CDs.

“Just sitting there and watching it, it’s hard. It was hard for me,” Young said. “I didn’t know why I wasn’t playing. (The Sixers) were bringing in players from the D-League and they were playing over me. It ain’t like I cussed (Collins) out or nothing. I was just sitting and waiting. But Doug hits me up from time to time. He texts me. He says he’s proud of me and stuff.”

In Young’s words, last season “is what it is.” And, Young said, it could have been different.

“Drew never got a chance to play. I know the fans were going crazy over that,” he said. “But what shocked me was this year. I had no idea they were going to trade Jrue Holiday, but obviously they’ve seen something in Carter that no one else did.”

That would be Michael Carter-Williams, Holiday’s successor as the Sixers’ point guard. Young will get a good look at the rookie. Only, it’ll have to come from the Lakers’ bench.

(Boston University)

While the 76ers’ game Wednesday night against the host Boston Celtics is sure to be a treat for Sixers rookie and Hamilton, Mass., native Michael Carter-Williams, as well as for injured rookie Nerlens Noel, of Malden, Mass., it’s fair to assume the Sixers’ first-year coach will have a few familiar faces in the arena, too.

The native of South Portland, Maine, who routinely took trips with his parents into Boston as a youth to watch the Celtics, Brett Brown spoke glowingly Tuesday after the Sixers’ practice about his links to Boston: the games he’d seen there and the games he’d played there, as an undergrad at Boston University.

Here’s what Brown had to say:

On Boston Garden’s charm:

“In the seats I had, you’d look up five feet to the roof and see the moss and the stalagmites or stalactites. I don’t remember which one goes up or down. You’re in an old, dingy building that had so much character.”

On the parquet floor’s unforgiving squares:

“I played there a few times during my Boston University days,” he said. “You’d play in Christmas tournaments – BC, Northeastern, UMass. You’d be flying up the court, dribbling and you’d hit one of the dead squares and you’re upset because it’s a turnover with nobody around and (the ball) just wouldn’t come up. It’s funny. You started learning, as a point guard, where you could go for steals. Sometimes, with other point guards you were guarding were going to have trouble with the floor. You’d try to manipulate it and try to take it as an advantage.”

On the Sixers/Celtics games from back in the day:

“I can still hear the music, the introduction, to the NBA Game of the Week. You hear it and you think immediately, ‘NBA.’ To travel down to the Garden, and to see back in my day it was (George) McGinnis and Julius Erving and Bobby Jones and Andrew Toney and Mo Cheeks and Doug (Collins) and so on. I couldn’t believe how Toney would kick the Celtics’ tail. He was so unguardable. … It was such a big part of my upbringing.”

(AP)

The Portland Trail Blazers brought to Philly a familiar face, in Dorell Wright.

Wright, who spent last season with the 76ers, got a two-year, $6 million deal in the summer from Portland. That’s a pay cut for the 10^th-year swingman, who made more than $4 million for his work with the 2012-13 Sixers.

Still, it’s more than the Sixers were willing to offer Wright, who averaged 9.2 points and shot 39.6 percent last season.

“There was nothing,” Wright said.

That being said, the grass in the Rose City isn’t always greener. Wright, who’s playing with an unspecified bench role for the Western Conference-leading Blazers, is averaging fewer minutes (14.2) than all but one season in his career. He’s averaging 4.9 points and 2.5 rebounds in 23 appearances, with zero starts. Also, he’s shooting 34.9 percent from 3-point range – his lowest total from beyond the arc since 2006-07.

“But we’re winning,” Wright said. “I don’t give a damn how many minutes (I’m playing) as long as we’re winning. I could care less if I was playing 40 minutes a night on a losing team. That don’t make no sense. The ultimate goal at the end of the day is to win. That’s what we’re doing, and I’m happy with my role, I’m happy with this team.”

Wright said he’s stayed in touch with current Sixers Evan Turner, Spencer Hawes and Arnett Moultrie, as well as deposed coach Doug Collins. Wright has no regrets from his one season with the Sixers, a team of shooters assembled around anticipated centerpiece Andrew Bynum.

“When that put the team in, as far as the different pieces, it didn’t work out with all the different injuries,” Wright said. “I still looked at it as me going out there each and every night and leaving it out there on the court. I’m not looking at it just as, ‘I’m here for a year,’ or whatever it was. I wanted to be back. You always want to be in a city as long as you can. They had other plans, as far as going young and rebuilding. I had other plans, as far as going to a different team and getting to the playoffs. I haven’t been the last couple years.”

(AP)

A day after needing only 13 minutes to foul out of an exhibition against Charlotte, Lavoy Allen contended Friday that the left knee that’s nagged him throughout preseason is OK. His coach said otherwise.

“I think he’s still, well, I know he’s still not at 100 percent,” 76ers coach Brett Brown said of Allen, following practice at PCOM.

Allen, who started Thursday in the Sixers’ 110-84 loss to the Bobcats, grabbed three rebounds and went scoreless before exiting with six personals.

The third-year forward said it takes him more than an hour to get his knee warmed up before practices and games. Allen said the injury stems from the opening days of training camp, when he tweaked it and woke up the next morning with it swollen. He said it dates to Sept. 9 and that, after rushing back, it took on more fluid. He said he’s had it drained once.

“Just trying to get my conditioning back. I sat out for a while,” Allen said, regarding expectations for the rest of the preseason.

Allen will make a little more than $3 million this season, the final year in a two-year deal with the Sixers. After averaging 5.8 points and 5.0 rebounds last season, Allen is looking for answers. And consistency. And health. And maybe not in that order.

“Still have a little bit of time,” Allen said. “It’s a long season. I’ve got a lot of time.”

Ex-Sixers coach Doug Collins said Allen, a low-key kind of guy, struggled with getting amped up to play. He commonly referred to “a motor” in Allen that, once started, led to improved play.

Allen said an internal motor isn’t the issue.

“I don’t really understand what that means,” he said. “I took human anatomy before. I don’t remember any motors being in there. I’m not sure. Maybe it’s changed. Maybe we evolved.”

But if it’s not the motor, then it must be the knee.

“Not really,” he said, “once I get it warmed up and everything.”