Minnesota Sports Forum

lipoli390 wrote:

Camden wrote:

BizarroJerry wrote:Raise your hand if you Thad Young picked as the best player back from the Kevin Love trade?

And yet this board dragged him through the mud while making countless excuses for Wiggins even to this day. Weird dynamic that was.

I didn't hate Thad Young. I recall thinking that the Wolves should have kept the 1st round pick they gave up to get him. It goes to a point I've made on this Board a lot about the Wolves ownership and front office. You have to have a clear goal and a coherent, consistent plan get there. Trading Kevin Love was the signature move to launch a rebuild. When you start a rebuild, your primary focus, especially in a mid-market like ours, has to be the accumulation of draft picks and young players with high upside. You don't use assets to obtain role players with no or minimal upside. Thad Young has always been a good role player. But that's not what the Wolves needed at the time.

Thad Young was 26 at the time. Can you imagine what having a guy like Taj Gibson all these years would have done for the franchise? Meanwhile the Nets resigned Young to a deal and ended up dealing him for a first round pick. You could have had your cake and ate it too.

I've always been willing to give Flip a little benefit of the doubt on the Thad Young KG deal. If Flip hadn't have died I think there was a chance that bringing on KG would have been a move that was a net positive even if it did give up a valuable asset. KG has his faults but it would be nice if the greatest Wolf of all time didn't stay the hell away from the organization. Sigh.

Also people hated on (maybe not actually hated but) Thad Young and another thing was that season the person that was responsible for raising him passed away and he missed some games. He didn't get the benefit of the doubt here. It was really kinda sad. I remember Cam being incredulous about the whole Thad Young thing.

monsterpile wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

Camden wrote:

BizarroJerry wrote:Raise your hand if you Thad Young picked as the best player back from the Kevin Love trade?

And yet this board dragged him through the mud while making countless excuses for Wiggins even to this day. Weird dynamic that was.

I didn't hate Thad Young. I recall thinking that the Wolves should have kept the 1st round pick they gave up to get him. It goes to a point I've made on this Board a lot about the Wolves ownership and front office. You have to have a clear goal and a coherent, consistent plan get there. Trading Kevin Love was the signature move to launch a rebuild. When you start a rebuild, your primary focus, especially in a mid-market like ours, has to be the accumulation of draft picks and young players with high upside. You don't use assets to obtain role players with no or minimal upside. Thad Young has always been a good role player. But that's not what the Wolves needed at the time.

Thad Young was 26 at the time. Can you imagine what having a guy like Taj Gibson all these years would have done for the franchise? Meanwhile the Nets resigned Young to a deal and ended up dealing him for a first round pick. You could have had your cake and ate it too.

I've always been willing to give Flip a little benefit of the doubt on the Thad Young KG deal. If Flip hadn't have died I think there was a chance that bringing on KG would have been a move that was a net positive even if it did give up a valuable asset. KG has his faults but it would be nice if the greatest Wolf of all time didn't stay the hell away from the organization. Sigh.

Also people hated on (maybe not actually hated but) Thad Young and another thing was that season the person that was responsible for raising him passed away and he missed some games. He didn't get the benefit of the doubt here. It was really kinda sad. I remember Cam being incredulous about the whole Thad Young thing.

I think it was more of a Thad/AB debate. The Love trade looked really for us on paper. But just another stroke on bad luck with this team. AB was a colossal failure and Wig is a borderline starter.

monsterpile wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

Camden wrote:

BizarroJerry wrote:Raise your hand if you Thad Young picked as the best player back from the Kevin Love trade?

And yet this board dragged him through the mud while making countless excuses for Wiggins even to this day. Weird dynamic that was.

I didn't hate Thad Young. I recall thinking that the Wolves should have kept the 1st round pick they gave up to get him. It goes to a point I've made on this Board a lot about the Wolves ownership and front office. You have to have a clear goal and a coherent, consistent plan get there. Trading Kevin Love was the signature move to launch a rebuild. When you start a rebuild, your primary focus, especially in a mid-market like ours, has to be the accumulation of draft picks and young players with high upside. You don't use assets to obtain role players with no or minimal upside. Thad Young has always been a good role player. But that's not what the Wolves needed at the time.

Thad Young was 26 at the time. Can you imagine what having a guy like Taj Gibson all these years would have done for the franchise? Meanwhile the Nets resigned Young to a deal and ended up dealing him for a first round pick. You could have had your cake and ate it too.

I've always been willing to give Flip a little benefit of the doubt on the Thad Young KG deal. If Flip hadn't have died I think there was a chance that bringing on KG would have been a move that was a net positive even if it did give up a valuable asset. KG has his faults but it would be nice if the greatest Wolf of all time didn't stay the hell away from the organization. Sigh.

Also people hated on (maybe not actually hated but) Thad Young and another thing was that season the person that was responsible for raising him passed away and he missed some games. He didn't get the benefit of the doubt here. It was really kinda sad. I remember Cam being incredulous about the whole Thad Young thing.

Yeah, you hit what I was going to say in response to Lip. Young was eventually flipped for a first-round pick. Minnesota could have had Young as a stopgap and then flipped him once the long-term replacement was in place. Instead, Flip relied on his emotions instead of his brain and his staff and dealt a mid-20's Young for a 38-year old KG who suited up for EIGHT total games that season. Keep in mind that KG could have been had in free agency if it was thought that he was a must add. And please, let's not rehash the debate of KG's off-court leadership magic potion. Slightly unrelated stance: Taj Gibson has had a much bigger impact on Karl-Anthony Towns' development than KG ever could. That on-court presence means way more than someone on the bench whispering sweet nothings into your ear.

Flip is a Minnesota legend and loved by many, but he severely fucked that deal up and doubled down on the atrocity by acquiring Adreian Payne. We talk about vision of a franchise, but it's pretty obvious that even Flip had little actual vision for this group. Too many wish washy decisions and old school thinking.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:Many people on this forum HATED Thad Young.

I think they thought he was the anti-christ or something.

I hated the way he played that year. I thought he was terrible in his short stint here.

Thad Young underwhelmed here. Not much difference than 90% of our acquisitions. I do remember him saying when the Rubio extension was granted that he wanted a payday and was looking to extend as well. I think ultimately when it was clear he wasn't getting that money he didn't exactly respond with a huge impact. Ultimately Thad was just another player who played worse here than for other teams. Familiar story. Thad is a system player who probably would never fare very well on a team that needs length and rebounding. Doesn't negate his talent, we just didn't see the best version of Thad here.

thedoper wrote:Thad Young underwhelmed here. Not much difference than 90% of our acquisitions. I do remember him saying when the Rubio extension was granted that he wanted a payday and was looking to extend as well. I think ultimately when it was clear he wasn't getting that money he didn't exactly respond with a huge impact. Ultimately Thad was just another player who played worse here than for other teams. Familiar story. Thad is a system player who probably would never fare very well on a team that needs length and rebounding. Doesn't negate his talent, we just didn't see the best version of Thad here.

Young's stats here weren't all that different than anywhere else. Shot a bit worse, rebounding was very meh... more assists than normal.

He was a decent, better than average player.

I'm not sure what effect being on a 66-loss team had on his slightly disappointing season. Obviously, he's just a complementary guy, so a lot of his effectiveness comes from the help of others.


[Note: Looking back at that team, Justin Hamilton was a fairly effective in small sample sizes! I don't remember how excited we were about him at the time though.]

For Thad I just think that he is another example of diminishing return when we obtain players.

Teague value is down
Wiggins value is down
Gibson value at best is the same
Gorgui value down
Towns value is up
Rose value is up
Tyus value I would say is down
Tolliver value is down
Okogie I don't think a team gives up the #21 pick for him

Thad is just another example where we take a role player with some value and turn him into 30ish KG games

kekgeek1 wrote:For Thad I just think that he is another example of diminishing return when we obtain players.

Teague value is down
Wiggins value is down
Gibson value at best is the same
Gorgui value down
Towns value is up
Rose value is up
Tyus value I would say is down
Tolliver value is down
Okogie I don't think a team gives up the #21 pick for him

Thad is just another example where we take a role player with some value and turn him into 30ish KG games

But that 66-loss team wasn't getting any sellouts without the KG signing. Glen Taylor probably pocketed a few hundred thousand dollars in the middle of a terrible, terrible seasons.

I remember the sellout era well from that season.

I got cheap tickets... but my niece got vertigo from being up so high. The Wolves ticket office was more shocked than I was that nothing else was available...

So in summary, good financial decision, Glen.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

thedoper wrote:Thad Young underwhelmed here. Not much difference than 90% of our acquisitions. I do remember him saying when the Rubio extension was granted that he wanted a payday and was looking to extend as well. I think ultimately when it was clear he wasn't getting that money he didn't exactly respond with a huge impact. Ultimately Thad was just another player who played worse here than for other teams. Familiar story. Thad is a system player who probably would never fare very well on a team that needs length and rebounding. Doesn't negate his talent, we just didn't see the best version of Thad here.

Young's stats here weren't all that different than anywhere else. Shot a bit worse, rebounding was very meh... more assists than normal.

He was a decent, better than average player.

I'm not sure what effect being on a 66-loss team had on his slightly disappointing season. Obviously, he's just a complementary guy, so a lot of his effectiveness comes from the help of others.


[Note: Looking back at that team, Justin Hamilton was a fairly effective in small sample sizes! I don't remember how excited we were about him at the time though.]

I knew the stats argument would come up. He was simply awful in his time with the Wolves. Maybe i expected too much.

CoolBreeze44 wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

thedoper wrote:Thad Young underwhelmed here. Not much difference than 90% of our acquisitions. I do remember him saying when the Rubio extension was granted that he wanted a payday and was looking to extend as well. I think ultimately when it was clear he wasn't getting that money he didn't exactly respond with a huge impact. Ultimately Thad was just another player who played worse here than for other teams. Familiar story. Thad is a system player who probably would never fare very well on a team that needs length and rebounding. Doesn't negate his talent, we just didn't see the best version of Thad here.

Young's stats here weren't all that different than anywhere else. Shot a bit worse, rebounding was very meh... more assists than normal.

He was a decent, better than average player.

I'm not sure what effect being on a 66-loss team had on his slightly disappointing season. Obviously, he's just a complementary guy, so a lot of his effectiveness comes from the help of others.


[Note: Looking back at that team, Justin Hamilton was a fairly effective in small sample sizes! I don't remember how excited we were about him at the time though.]

I knew the stats argument would come up. He was simply awful in his time with the Wolves. Maybe i expected too much.

Maybe. I dunno what you expected.

That team lost 66 games. It was a disaster.

At the time, however, people made it seem like Young was one of the primary culprits for being the worst team in the L... he didn't help much, but he wasn't THE reason. Obviously.