Minnesota Sports Forum

One thing I don't think has really been brought up here among the discussion of. Thad's efficienty TS% etc is that Thad isn't really a scorer. I'd say he is a very competent offensive player but he isn't a scorer. Can you live with him shooting 50% from the floor scoring 12-15ppg in other word he isn't taking a lot of shots? I think I can. We don't need him to put up a ton of points (yes he might score more than my range) or be uber efficient. We need a guy that can put the ball in the basket when put in reasonable situations (we haven't had many of those guys) and maybe even score a few times when not put in the best situations. It seems like Thad's relative strengths on offense are a good fit with other players on the team and how its likely we play.

monsterpile wrote:One thing I don't think has really been brought up here among the discussion of. Thad's efficienty TS% etc is that Thad isn't really a scorer. I'd say he is a very competent offensive player but he isn't a scorer. Can you live with him shooting 50% from the floor scoring 12-15ppg in other word he isn't taking a lot of shots? I think I can. We don't need him to put up a ton of points (yes he might score more than my range) or be uber efficient. We need a guy that can put the ball in the basket when put in reasonable situations (we haven't had many of those guys) and maybe even score a few times when not put in the best situations. It seems like Thad's relative strengths on offense are a good fit with other players on the team and how its likely we play.

I don't know, monster...I would argue that scoring is Thad's strongest suit. He did score almost 18 points a game last year. He's not a rebounder, and he's a below average defender, so he needs to bring efficient scoring to the table to be a solid contributor. To answer your question, I don't think most fans would be happy with 12-15 PPG from a starter if he also wasn't bringing strong defense and rebounding. I think the best role for Young would be as an energy guy off the bench, scoring 10-12 PPG and running the court.

longstrangetrip wrote:

monsterpile wrote:One thing I don't think has really been brought up here among the discussion of. Thad's efficienty TS% etc is that Thad isn't really a scorer. I'd say he is a very competent offensive player but he isn't a scorer. Can you live with him shooting 50% from the floor scoring 12-15ppg in other word he isn't taking a lot of shots? I think I can. We don't need him to put up a ton of points (yes he might score more than my range) or be uber efficient. We need a guy that can put the ball in the basket when put in reasonable situations (we haven't had many of those guys) and maybe even score a few times when not put in the best situations. It seems like Thad's relative strengths on offense are a good fit with other players on the team and how its likely we play.

I don't know, monster...I would argue that scoring is Thad's strongest suit. He did score almost 18 points a game last year. He's not a rebounder, and he's a below average defender, so he needs to bring efficient scoring to the table to be a solid contributor. To answer your question, I don't think most fans would be happy with 12-15 PPG from a starter if he also wasn't bringing strong defense and rebounding. I think the best role for Young would be as an energy guy off the bench, scoring 10-12 PPG and running the court.

Awesome I got you defnding Thad!!!! Lol

Yeah he scored 18 ppg on a team where he was the leading scorer. That's brutal I said it months ago and I'll say it now if Thad is your leading scorer you suck bigtime and they did. This isn't a rip on Thad at all. He is a 3rd option at best and his career season by season scoring totals are a pretty strong indicator of that. To define my terms I don't consider guys scorers that don't score at least 15ppg in 30+ mpg. Consider how many starters the Wolves have had at any position the last 5 years shooting 50% from the floor (or some reasonable percentage for a guard) and you will see even with modest expectations I am suggesting Thad would be plenty valuable considering what. We have gotten out of other guuys. Like its been said here he is a big upgrade from Dante who is a decent bench player who was forced into a bigger role than he should have.

longstrangetrip wrote:

monsterpile wrote:One thing I don't think has really been brought up here among the discussion of. Thad's efficienty TS% etc is that Thad isn't really a scorer. I'd say he is a very competent offensive player but he isn't a scorer. Can you live with him shooting 50% from the floor scoring 12-15ppg in other word he isn't taking a lot of shots? I think I can. We don't need him to put up a ton of points (yes he might score more than my range) or be uber efficient. We need a guy that can put the ball in the basket when put in reasonable situations (we haven't had many of those guys) and maybe even score a few times when not put in the best situations. It seems like Thad's relative strengths on offense are a good fit with other players on the team and how its likely we play.

I don't know, monster...I would argue that scoring is Thad's strongest suit. He did score almost 18 points a game last year. He's not a rebounder, and he's a below average defender, so he needs to bring efficient scoring to the table to be a solid contributor. To answer your question, I don't think most fans would be happy with 12-15 PPG from a starter if he also wasn't bringing strong defense and rebounding. I think the best role for Young would be as an energy guy off the bench, scoring 10-12 PPG and running the court.

I think young starts this year and next year if he opts in he ends up at the backup SF/PF.

I am liking how next years draft looks to be filled with needs for our team. Please let the stars allign.

monsterpile wrote:

longstrangetrip wrote:

monsterpile wrote:One thing I don't think has really been brought up here among the discussion of. Thad's efficienty TS% etc is that Thad isn't really a scorer. I'd say he is a very competent offensive player but he isn't a scorer. Can you live with him shooting 50% from the floor scoring 12-15ppg in other word he isn't taking a lot of shots? I think I can. We don't need him to put up a ton of points (yes he might score more than my range) or be uber efficient. We need a guy that can put the ball in the basket when put in reasonable situations (we haven't had many of those guys) and maybe even score a few times when not put in the best situations. It seems like Thad's relative strengths on offense are a good fit with other players on the team and how its likely we play.

I don't know, monster...I would argue that scoring is Thad's strongest suit. He did score almost 18 points a game last year. He's not a rebounder, and he's a below average defender, so he needs to bring efficient scoring to the table to be a solid contributor. To answer your question, I don't think most fans would be happy with 12-15 PPG from a starter if he also wasn't bringing strong defense and rebounding. I think the best role for Young would be as an energy guy off the bench, scoring 10-12 PPG and running the court.

Awesome I got you defnding Thad!!!! Lol

Yeah he scored 18 ppg on a team where he was the leading scorer. That's brutal I said it months ago and I'll say it now if Thad is your leading scorer you suck bigtime and they did. This isn't a rip on Thad at all. He is a 3rd option at best and his career season by season scoring totals are a pretty strong indicator of that. To define my terms I don't consider guys scorers that don't score at least 15ppg in 30+ mpg. Consider how many starters the Wolves have had at any position the last 5 years shooting 50% from the floor (or some reasonable percentage for a guard) and you will see even with modest expectations I am suggesting Thad would be plenty valuable considering what. We have gotten out of other guuys. Like its been said here he is a big upgrade from Dante who is a decent bench player who was forced into a bigger role than he should have.

You tricked me into defending him, monster!

Actually I have been consistent in defending him for his work ethic and personal characteristics. He seems like an easy guy to cheer for, and could be a quality 7th or 8th man. I just don't think he is worth Anthony Bennett or another first round pick if intangibles are the primary quality he brings to the table.

LST thanks for having a sense of humor.

What is clear is everyone here would like to add Thad to the team and thinks he has value. A couple people value him more highly than everyone else and I think they have plenty of reasons why they do. That value we assign to Thad matters when we find out what we give up for him in deciding if we like the price we paid for him. I think people will be happy what he brings to the team its just some people have varying levels of what they are willing to part with him for.

Where I stand now...If I felt I had a very good chance of keeping Thad beyond this year (seems like chances are good but not a sure thing) giving up a pick seems pretty reasonable. I'm too conflicted on Bennett to say if I would give him up to get Thad. I'd give up a pick or Bennett at most for Young that where I am at right now as the most I would give up. I imagine that's the least that the Sixers are going to take they have decent leverage they don't have to trade Young for less than that.

If any team is proof positive that having a scoring pf nets u very lil in the win column its the Wolves. Give me 14pts 7 boards and good defense and Ill be happy. Lets put the scoring load on the perimeter where it belongs.

I think that it is misleading to use career averages to evaluate player in case he has improved. And based on advanced statistics like win shares/48, PER and ORtg and DRtg, Thaddeus Young has clearly improved during his career. Last year those dropped but I think that reason was clear since he was playing in awful Philly team.

In seasons 2010-11, 11-12 and 12-13, Young had average of DRtg 102,3 and had total of 9.6 defensive win shares, Based on those statistics, Young would have been better defender than for example Aldridge or Griffin and quite comparable to Randolph or West and Young has not had anyone like Marc Gasol or Hibbert helping his statistics. Boozer for example has had lately very nice advanced statistic in defense but they are mainly because of Thibodeau and Noah. You can ask from Chicago fans what they think about Boozers defense. Since Young passes both eye test and his advanced defense statistics has been OK lately (except last year) I think it is clear that he is better than average defender.

I see that in offense Young is pretty much similar player than Shawn Marion was in his Phoenix years. His statistics have not been as impressive mainly because he has been playing much less minutes compared what Shawn used to play and Philly has been playing also much lower pace. But if you compare their per 100 possession offense numbers, they look incredible similar. Marion did benefit also playing with elite pass first point guards like Kidd and Nash in Phoenix. So I look forward that also Young's shooting numbers will improve if he gets the chance to play with Rubio.

Mikkeman wrote:I think that it is misleading to use career averages to evaluate player in case he has improved. And based on advanced statistics like win shares/48, PER and ORtg and DRtg, Thaddeus Young has clearly improved during his career. Last year those dropped but I think that reason was clear since he was playing in awful Philly team.

In seasons 2010-11, 11-12 and 12-13, Young had average of DRtg 102,3 and had total of 9.6 defensive win shares, Based on those statistics, Young would have been better defender than for example Aldridge or Griffin and quite comparable to Randolph or West and Young has not had anyone like Marc Gasol or Hibbert helping his statistics. Boozer for example has had lately very nice advanced statistic in defense but they are mainly because of Thibodeau and Noah. You can ask from Chicago fans what they think about Boozers defense. Since Young passes both eye test and his advanced defense statistics has been OK lately (except last year) I think it is clear that he is better than average defender.

I see that in offense Young is pretty much similar player than Shawn Marion was in his Phoenix years. His statistics have not been as impressive mainly because he has been playing much less minutes compared what Shawn used to play and Philly has been playing also much lower pace. But if you compare their per 100 possession offense numbers, they look incredible similar. Marion did benefit also playing with elite pass first point guards like Kidd and Nash in Phoenix. So I look forward that also Young's shooting numbers will improve if he gets the chance to play with Rubio.

With all due respect, Mikkeman, there seem to be an awful lot of rules imposed on how we should evaluate Thaddeus Young. When I compared his 2013-14 stats to other PF's, I was told that was misleading because Philly was so bad last year (although it seems to me that playing on a team with bad players should have led to a better rebounding year for him). So then I compared his career stats to other NBA PF's, since there isn't much mystery to what a 7-year veteran brings to the table. And the response now is that career stats are misleading because he is improving! NBA players should improve the longer they are in the league, and I have a hard time understanding why comparing two players' career stats could be misleading. It seems that the Young apologists want to cherry pick his good years so as to make him look better than he really is. All I'm trying to do is provide an honest assessment of his stats, and neither his most recent stats or his career stats stand up very well to the league's PF's

You also say that it is clear that he is an above average defender, and I would argue that a 106 career defensive rating is not above average. If it is, we need to begin describing Kevin Love and Nikola Pekovic as above average defenders, and I don't think that is the general perception of most NBA experts. And it's not as if his rating is getting consistently better...in actuality his numbers are up and down. His first three years in the league his defensive ratings got steadily worse, then he had two nice years of improvement, followed by a negative trend the last two years. When a player is up and down like this and he has 7 years of history, the most reliable way to measure him is by taking his career numbers, which puts him at the same level as Love and Pek (without the rebounding, of course).

Finally, you make the point that his shooting numbers should improve playing with Rubio. I tend to gravitate toward optimism with respect to the Wolves, and have used this rationale before also. But I'm starting to wonder if it's really true. Is there evidence that players that have joined the Wolves during the Rubio years have improved their shooting numbers? As I take a quick glance, it looks like players such as Martin, Luc, Barea, and Bud all have worse shooting numbers since they joined the Wolves. The only exception I can find is Corey Brewer, whose TS% improved significantly last year, although some may argue that a lot of that improvement was due to Love's outlet passes. Am I missing any other players who have improved their shooting because of Ricky, or do I (and we) have to quit using this argument?

LST, you need to look at their numbers when they're on the floor with Rubio and not just their overall numbers for the seasons they were with the Wolves and then you can compare it to those players' career averages. Rubio DOES make his teammates better.