Veteran presence Nick Young gives young Lakers a lesson in firework safety

"I believe children are the future."

That's not a quote from Los Angeles Lakers forward Nick Young, but it very easily could be. Youth is in the air around the purple and gold this summer, with the team officially introducing rookies Brandon Ingram and Ivica Zubac on Tuesday, and the rest of the roster (other than veterans Lou Williams, Timofey Mozgov, and Luol Deng) are all at or under the age of 23.

In that spirit, the oldest player on the Lakers decided to do his part to give his young teammates a lesson in firework safety on the 4th of July. The video coming out on July 5th is a bit of a hindrance to this goal, but at least the young Lakers will be ready for next year, or to use any leftover fireworks.

The first step, as the 31-year old Young outlines in his video, is to take your shirt off and light up the giant, surely-legal firework in the street, that way no one is near it when it goes off:

Then, raise the firework high above your head, because you wouldn't want it to do any damage to the very fragile asphalt. Way to look out for the environment around you, Swaggy!

Afterwards, make sure you-- OH NO NICK FOR GOD'S SAKE LET GO OF  THE FIRE----

Well, look at that team player. Young was willing to risk life, limb, and quite possibly what's left of his career to show his young teammates how to correctly use fireworks. It's good to see Young is okay after such an unfortunate mishap, and hopefully he's able to stay around the Lakers for years to come in order to teach his young teammates more crucial lessons like this.

Here it is in action:

The preceding article was (hopefully obvious) parody. Nick Young did not actually release this video for his teammates, it was recorded by someone else (presumably not D'Angelo Russell) and posted on the internet. You can follow this author on Twitter at @hmfaigen.