Minnesota Sports Forum

PorkChop wrote:Sine when did Cam ever use the eyeball test on a player? He more than anyone uses numbers and stats of all kinds to support his arguments. Guess this is his lone exception? :)

I use the eyeball test as well as stats when judging a player. Not all stats tell the whole story. Just like the eye test too can be deceiving if you don't have anything to back it up.

Somewhere in that there was a compliment, though. My arguments are usually well-supported? Found it. :thumb:

Let me try to summarize:

LST: Thad Young is not a very good starting PF relative to other NBA starting PFs.

Cam: Thad Young is a very good player and teammate in general, regardless of position.

Me: Thad Young can be a very good weapon off the bench playing between 25-28 MPG.

I think all three statements are correct.

Hi! I'm first time writer in this board but I have been following Timberwolves discussion already in ESPN forum time. I have enjoyed just following the discussion since the quality of this board is so high.

But now I need to write since I don't understand why Thaddeus Young gets so little love from some persons in this board. Especially I find it absurd that LST has been writing several times that Young is ineffective scorer that is simply not true.

Young has been ineffective as scorer only last year after all star break when Hawes and Turner were traded and Young was in many nights only scoring threat for historically bad Philly team. Even in last year before all star break his true shooting % was 52.8 which is quite OK if we consider that his usage rate was already then all time high (almost 23). After all star break we saw that Young cannot maintain his decent true shooting percentage if he is almost only scoring threat in his team and his USG% is close to 27%.

When we are comparing how effective scorer certain player is, we need to consider players usage rate. If we look look TS% of all power forwards, last year only following power forwards that had comparable or higher USG% than Young: Nowitski, Love, Griffin, Millsap, Blatche, Lee, Nene and Markief Morris were clearly more effective scorers than Young. That is pretty good company.

It means that even in last year (that was Young's worst season by far) he was as effective or better scorer than Aldridge, Boozer, Zach Randolph, Gibson, Scola and Ilyasova.

If we do similar comparison in seasons 2012-13, 2011-12 and 2010-11, it seems that results are quite similar:
2012-13: Nowitski, Griffin, Ryan Anderson, David West, Andrew Nicholson, Anthony Davis, Jeff Green, Ilyasova, Landry, Lee, Jamison and Marion
2011-12: Nowitski, Love, Griffin, Aldridge, Stoudemire, Bosh, Ryan Anderson, Boozer, Millsap, Gasol, Blair and Ilyasova
2010-11: Nowitski, Love, Griffin, Bosh, Ryan Anderson, Millsap, Garnett, Warrick and Ryan Anderson

It seems to me that almost all more efficient power forwards have been all star or near all star level and Young has been consistent with this already several years.

I think that Young belongs to group of 3rd tier power forwards. I consider that Love, Griffin, Aldridge, Anthony Davis and Nowitski belong to group of elite PFs, Zach Randolph, Chris Bosh, Serge Ibaka, David West, David Lee and Paul Gasol are 2nd tiers and Young, Millsap, Monroe, Ryan Anderson, Faried, Nene, Josh Smith and Taj Gibson are in next group. This means that Thaddeus Young is average starter in

I also think that Young is maybe best fit from that group to Minnesota team. He is good scorer that doesn't need the ball and has some range in his jump shot that makes him good fit in offense next to Pek. I also think that Young is 3rd best defender after Taj Gibson and Josh Smith in that group.

This is going to be an interesting season for sure. There is probably a good argument that having Thad as a starting 4, especially in the west, will result in problems many nights as far as rebounding and defending the post. That said, this team is tailor made to run and I think Thad will be a big part of that and can offset some of the problems this new team will face. Also a potentially improved perimeter defense could help offset any interior deficiencies and will presumably be a major focus for the coaching staff. The less Thad and Pek have to worry about penetration, the better.

Welcome to the forum, Mikkeman! Great post on Young and his usage rate compared to other power forwards. That was an angle that I had thought about, but was honestly too lazy to check out. I'm glad someone else can argue in defense for Young. You made some really good points.

Nice post, Mikkeman! I do think LST has been getting too hung up on last season for Thad.

His wife is opening a beauty salon later this month. I was thinking what a bummer it would be to open a new business in Philly, only to have your husband traded away to Minnesota a week later! But then I found out they live in Memphis...

I mentioned before, prior to last year, 82games.com likes Young pretty well.

Let's face it, Thad isn't really going to be any real piece going forward. We are just pretty late in the offseason, the options are pretty limited at this point. There's nobody else the Wolves are going to be able to get realistically better then Thad this late into the game

Good first post, Mikkeman, although I'm sure you understand I don't agree :) . And Tim, I'll use only Thad's career numbers in evaluating him in this post, so as not to emphasize last year.

I'm more than willing to throw out last year as an aberration and concentrate on Thadeus' career numbers. My main point about Young is this: Since his rebounding rate ranks him near the bottom of all NBA PF's (I think we can all agree on that, since I have seen no data on this board supporting Young as an adequate rebounder), I at least want him to be average in shooting efficiency. But his career TS% of 53.9% would have ranked him 40th among all PF's last year. I'm not sure how a 40th place career TS% can be deemed efficient. (I recognize that I am comparing Young's career TS% to other PF's 2013-4 numbers, but I don't know where to find career TS% by position...but based on all PF's last year, Young's career numbers are not very good).

You have mentioned LMA, Boozer and Randolph as other PF's who have similar career TS%, and I agree with you, as all three of those players rank very low in that one measurement. But all three of them are far better rebounders than Young, and at least equal or better defensively, skills that are vitally important for a PF. And to use your argument justifying Young's poor TS% last year because of his high usage rate, they all have substantially higher career usage rates than Young.

It seems to me that Young is only elite in one measurement...steals, and that doesn't seem to be enough to justify a $9 million contract when he is clearly below average in TS%, rebounding and overall defense. I agree with Cam that the eye test must be included with stats in evaluating a player, and from the little I have seen of Young, he passes the eye test. The guy hustles and doesn't take plays off. And I also like his reputation as a good teammate. For that reason, I am more than happy to have him on my team. I just want us to be a little more realistic about his stats and where they place him compared to other NBA PF's. And I will be unhappy if Flip gives up anything of significant value to get him.

alexftbl8181 wrote:Let's face it, Thad isn't really going to be any real piece going forward. We are just pretty late in the offseason, the options are pretty limited at this point. There's nobody else the Wolves are going to be able to get realistically better then Thad this late into the game

Why wouldn't he be, assuming Flip wants to re-sign him next off-season? I'd be willing to bet Flip wants to choose his PF of the future in the 2015 NBA Draft, but he'll still want to be competitive while he grooms him. Young is the guy for the job.

Camden wrote:

alexftbl8181 wrote:Let's face it, Thad isn't really going to be any real piece going forward. We are just pretty late in the offseason, the options are pretty limited at this point. There's nobody else the Wolves are going to be able to get realistically better then Thad this late into the game

Why wouldn't he be, assuming Flip wants to re-sign him next off-season? I'd be willing to bet Flip wants to choose his PF of the future in the 2015 NBA Draft, but he'll still want to be competitive while he grooms him. Young is the guy for the job.

I agree that PF will probably be Flip's focus in next year's draft, and the recent unusual streak of good luck ( I see the events that are leading to us getting Wiggins as good luck, given that we had to move Love) continues, as next year's draft may be stocked with great PF's.

Who knows if Thad will be an important piece going forward. His 7-year stats tell me no, but as Q mentioned yesterday, a hustling guy like him could be a nice player off the bench. If a bench player is his role, hopefully Flip would be able to extend him for substantially less than $9 million per year.

I have taken a pessimistic stance on Young based on his career stats, but I'm open to this optimistic possibility. Sometimes a change of scenery can resurrect a career. Young has played for the same team his entire career, and not a very good team at that. Perhaps he has been misused. I'm a fan of Flip as a coach, and perhaps he can help make Young into a better player than he has been in the past. I don't think that anyone would disagree that he would be a huge upgrade over Cunningham as a backup PF.