Nick Young's Near-Death Dolphin Tale Sounds A Lot Like A Kevin Hart Joke

On Tuesday, Lakers guard Nick Young told a harrowing story about a dolphin trying to kill him, but there's something odd about his tale: Young's near-death dolphin experience is quite similar to an old Kevin Hart joke.

It all started Monday night with Young's girlfriend Iggy Azalea tweeting about his fear of dolphins, along with a bad experience in Cabo:

Baxter Holmes of ESPN followed up on the tweets with Young before last night's game, and he elaborated:

Young said his near-death experience occurred in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, although he didn't specify when.

"He was playing with everybody else, doing what dolphins do — the 'ack ack' and all that," Young said. "It was my time to ride the dolphin. For some reason, he took me all the way to the bottom. He was trying to drown me. But I saw it happening so I jumped out of the water and took off the little life vest and threw off my little water shoes and stayed outside."

Young said the dolphin took others around in circles but didn't do the same when it was his turn to interact with it.

"He went straight down," Young said. "He was trying to kill me. I think he was trying to get on Iggy. He was a little friendly, kissing her and stuff. He was trying to take my woman."

Now, compare that with this Kevin Hart joke about supposedly being dragged to the bottom of the water when he was riding a dolphin in Maui:

An excerpt from Hart's story:

So, we go, we get there, they got the dolphins in this tank. It's like eight dolphins in this tank, right? When I get there, I see this old lady on the back of the dolphin, I see this little boy, I'm like, "You know what, babe, I might have been overreacting. Get the camera, take some pictures of me on the back of the dolphin." I was hyped, right?

I get in the water, I'm on the back of the dolphin. The instructor, he was like, "As soon as you grab the dolphin fin, the dolphin will start taking you around. So whenever you're ready, grab its fin." All right, cool. Soon as I grab my dolphin's fin, my dolphin went straight to the bottom of the tank. He just went down. So, because I was scared, I didn't let go. I held on. Like, you know when you're scared how you start to mentally create shit in your own mind? I was like, "Okay, it's obvious that I got a racist dolphin. He don't like black people."

There are two ways to take this coincidence. The less interesting explanation is Young, the comedian that he is, reworked a Kevin Hart joke for a gag. The second, scarier option is that multiple dolphins are trying to drown people. The dolphin menace is real, and it's coming.

Photo: Star Max/AP