In Defense of Thaddeus Young

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TheGrey08
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Re: In Defense of Thaddeus Young

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60WinTim wrote:In defense of Thad Young?!?

Tom Haberstroh ?@tomhaberstroh 24m24 minutes ago
Who's ready for 2015? Thaddeus Young. He registered a -639 in the Year 2014, lowest +/- in the NBA.

I was about to post this too lol... sooo... yeah.... about that...
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Q12543 [enjin:6621299]
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Re: In Defense of Thaddeus Young

Post by Q12543 [enjin:6621299] »

Well, he's also played for two of the worst teams in basketball during that stretch - Philly and the Wolves.

Flip needs to change things up. Adrien should be our starting PF. Bring Young off the bench as our 6th man.
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TheGrey08
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Re: In Defense of Thaddeus Young

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Q12543 wrote:
Trust me, Bennett is worse. Hummel might actually be outplaying both of these guys, but that means someone else has to take on the scoring load, and whoever it is, they aren't ready for it either.

Here is another stat for Young that I think is a bellwether for his efficiency: Dunks. He has four of them this year. Four (!) This is so far below his career rate of dunks it's not even funny. He almost never gets an easy basket these days because Flip isolates him at the top of the key and never runs sets that gets him in motion off the ball. Again, if we had two ball-handlers out there and some other scorers, I think he would be getting a ton more easy looks.

I haven't watched a ton of minutes, but what I have seen is Thad miss easier shots in the paint. It's not just lack of chances. He simply doesn't know how to play within himself without being forced to do so by having better players around him.
Q12543 wrote:Cool, I don't think Thad's defense is very good one-on-one, but that's mostly because he's playing against bigger, stronger players. I actually think he can be pretty good when playing against PFs closer to his size, which is why coming off the bench would be a much better fit for him.

I think the biggest problem with Thad's defense is his rebounding, but again, he just doesn't have the physical size or strength to mix it up on the inside against starting C/PFs. So whenever Gorgui goes up to block a shot, there is no one there to clear out space under the basket and carom the missed shot or blocked shot. It usually ends up in the hands of an opponent, who proceeds with an easy putback. That's why I pine for Adrien to start next to Gorgui, but it looks like his tenure is short-lived at this point.

Yes please. Move Thad to the bench and start Adrien. I'd even rather seen Bennett start over him. Bennett should be thrown into the fire eventually this year to see what he has.
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AbeVigodaLive
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Re: In Defense of Thaddeus Young

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TheGrey08 wrote:
Q12543 wrote:
Trust me, Bennett is worse. Hummel might actually be outplaying both of these guys, but that means someone else has to take on the scoring load, and whoever it is, they aren't ready for it either.

Here is another stat for Young that I think is a bellwether for his efficiency: Dunks. He has four of them this year. Four (!) This is so far below his career rate of dunks it's not even funny. He almost never gets an easy basket these days because Flip isolates him at the top of the key and never runs sets that gets him in motion off the ball. Again, if we had two ball-handlers out there and some other scorers, I think he would be getting a ton more easy looks.

I haven't watched a ton of minutes, but what I have seen is Thad miss easier shots in the paint. It's not just lack of chances. He simply doesn't know how to play within himself without being forced to do so by having better players around him.
Q12543 wrote:Cool, I don't think Thad's defense is very good one-on-one, but that's mostly because he's playing against bigger, stronger players. I actually think he can be pretty good when playing against PFs closer to his size, which is why coming off the bench would be a much better fit for him.

I think the biggest problem with Thad's defense is his rebounding, but again, he just doesn't have the physical size or strength to mix it up on the inside against starting C/PFs. So whenever Gorgui goes up to block a shot, there is no one there to clear out space under the basket and carom the missed shot or blocked shot. It usually ends up in the hands of an opponent, who proceeds with an easy putback. That's why I pine for Adrien to start next to Gorgui, but it looks like his tenure is short-lived at this point.

Yes please. Move Thad to the bench and start Adrien. I'd even rather seen Bennett start over him. Bennett should be thrown into the fire eventually this year to see what he has.



I don't think Bennett has shown enough to deserve to start.

Doesn't Aiden next to Dieng screw up what little spacing the Wolves already have?

And does it show other veterans around the league that the Wolves may not be the best landing spot since they'd be sorta/kinda snubbing a proven player and making him the scapegoat on a team of crappy players? There's a hierarchy in the NBA. I'm not saying the Wolves can't bench a guy like Young. I'm simply saying that the number of "They benched Young for THAT guy" comments might be heard more often in NBA arenas.
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Q12543 [enjin:6621299]
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Re: In Defense of Thaddeus Young

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The only issue is that Adrien is Gorgui's backup, so that is a lot of minutes for Adrien then. We really need another Center so that Adrien can play PF full time and split minutes with Young.

As for Bennett, he needs to be patient. And when he does play, he needs to give strong effort the whole time.
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Q12543 [enjin:6621299]
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Re: In Defense of Thaddeus Young

Post by Q12543 [enjin:6621299] »

Abe, I'm less worried about spacing than I am about getting mauled on the glass every night. Dieng can step out and facilitate from the high post. And Wiggins and Bazz should be given the green light to shoot 3s.
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AbeVigodaLive
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Re: In Defense of Thaddeus Young

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Q12543 wrote:Abe, I'm less worried about spacing than I am about getting mauled on the glass every night. Dieng can step out and facilitate from the high post. And Wiggins and Bazz should be given the green light to shoot 3s.



Agreed about the three pointers.

Not so sure about pairing Aiden and Dieng together on the court offensively. For the extra help on the glass... the team loses needed spacing. And, who are they guarding? Can Aiden guard 4s with range? Can Dieng? Can either play in space?

I see it as a "move around the furniture on the Titanic" type of move.
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TheGrey08
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Re: In Defense of Thaddeus Young

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khans2k5 wrote:The guy has a jump shot which is 50% of the battle for him. Now if he develops a post game, he would have an offensive skill set worth keeping. You mention his effort on the court. He gets pulled the first chance Flip gets and he barely sees the floor to begin with. How does that not shatter a young guy's confidence? Make a mistake, sit and in some cases be done for the night. The same thing happened to Bazz last year and look how he played once he got consistent minutes. You could see genuine effort from Bennett to start the year and now he has been beaten down by a coach treating him differently from the other players. Wiggins doesn't play hard quite often and yet he plays 30 minutes a game and just gets a post game comment about it. Lavine has mental lapses just as big as Bennett and he plays 25 minutes a night. Flip is beating the effort right out of Bennett. There's a point where you can't do anything right and it goes one of two ways. You're allowed to play out of it or you are limited and stuck wallowing in it. All I ask is for a stretch of 20+ minute games to see if he can bounce back because I know he won't just get better out of thin air by playing 16 minutes a game and now riding the bench even longer than that because Flip is going with Hummel. Flip is doing to Bennett exactly what he criticized Adelman for doing to Bazz last year. It doesn't make sense to me based on how we have been playing this year. Nobody is playing well so that means you go with the youth movement and give them as much time as possible.

I tend to agree Bennett probably isn't getting a fair shake, but at the same time we really don't know what's going on behind the scenes. It's possible he's treated differently b/c he needs to be. IE: some guys react positively to being ridiculed and yelled at while other guys react positively when you talk to them 1 on 1.

Just saying we don't REALLY know. Either way I hope we start seeing Bennett more. Thad isn't doing anything to warrant starting over anyone else at this point.
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BizarroJerry [enjin:6592520]
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Re: In Defense of Thaddeus Young

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I'm really hoping AB develops into a starting PF on a GOOD team, I don't think Thad is that guy, hate those floating jumpers in the lane, he looks pretty soft. I really wish we could have gotten Mr. Kardashian to come back home, after watching a few Wizards games, he's looking pretty good as a bench big.
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AbeVigodaLive
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Re: In Defense of Thaddeus Young

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BizarroJerry wrote:I'm really hoping AB develops into a starting PF on a GOOD team, I don't think Thad is that guy, hate those floating jumpers in the lane, he looks pretty soft. I really wish we could have gotten Mr. Kardashian to come back home, after watching a few Wizards games, he's looking pretty good as a bench big.




Zach Lowe (Grantland) did a story on guys like Humphries. In a league where a lot of teams are angling for bigs with range or with rim protection... guys like Humphries can fall through the cracks in search of a home... for cheap.

Since the Wolves don't really seem to care about protecting the rim or having bigs with range... it would seem like they could get some pretty good bang for the buck chasing those guys.
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