Film Study: Breaking Down What Thaddeus Young Can Bring to the Indiana Pacers

Thaddeus Young can run, jump, and display an array of offensive skills while rushing the hoop, but he struggles to make shots and has some serious defensive flaws. Will starting him at the four actually make the Indiana Pacers better?

The 2015-16 season was tough for Thaddeus Young. After a short-lived playoff run the year prior, Young found himself on a hopeless Brooklyn Nets squad without expected franchise cornerstones Joe Johnson and Deron Williams.

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But after being dealt to Indiana, things are looking up for Young. His prior team’s struggles with Young as a marquee player, however, have some questioning how much the forward can really move the needle.

Young scored a more-than-respectable 0.93 points per possession on post-ups last season per NBA.com, but the Pacers should be wary of giving him extended touches down low. You need some of Boogie’s strength or Diaw’s herk-and-jerk to earn the close-range looks and desperation fouls that power efficient offenses. He doesn’t have that. Instead, Thaddeus Young mostly settles for lefty hook shots — shots that look good, but equate to contested midrangers.

Instead, in a switch-infested league, his flip-shot game has some value.  You need one-on-one ballers to punish teams that swap, and Thad has the goods to exploit mismatches. His midrange hooks become short-range bunnies against smalls, and he glides by colossals off the dribble:

But the Pacers don’t have the most switch-inducing lineup. Paul George aside, there’s no off-the-dribble bomber prompting teams to abandon their traditional coverages. They’ll have to get weird, like using a backcourt sniper as the screener in a Thad pick-and-pop to force some exploitable switches.

That said: Their best backcourt sniper took the last flight out to Utah this summer. Jeff Teague shot well last year from deep, but he still has to prove it wasn’t a career-year aberration. Aaron Brooks could potentially instill some fear on the pop, but he comes with his own host of matchup issues.

Most likely, Thaddeus “Forever” Young will spend the lion’s share of his time away from the ball, and the offense will have about as much room to operate as Dikembe Mutombo riding coach. Young has been a league-average shooter from the great beyond only twice in his career (2008-09 and 2009-10), and he launched a Tony Allen-like 30 threes last season. Even Andre Roberson is smirking at those few attempts.

With Larry Bird preaching Manifest Run-and-Gun-Our-Asses-Off, expect those numbers to go up. Young shot a rough 36% on long twos (78-for-215) last year, which the Pacers are likely hoping to trade in for just north of 30% from downtown, accompanied by a little more spacing for road-runner Jeff Teague. If he can manage that, Thad can at least give Indiana a sort of Houdini spacing — when he’s hitting jumpers, you’ll see it; when he’s not, you won’t.

More often than not, Young will be stationed in the dunker spot he inhabited in Brooklyn. Camping out under the rim shortens the rotations for defenses and makes the paint a dead end — a wrench in the gears of humming offenses. Thaddeus Young’s a talented enough finisher and off-ball cutter to mitigate the slog, but it’s far from an even trade.

As the diver, Young struggles making the tic-tac-toe passes that let offenses breathe in such tight spaces. He’s still in the honeymoon phase with his floater, opting for contested looks over easier lobs to the rim:

So, ultimately, Thad is a paint-bound four without compensatory rebounding or defensive chops (we’ll get to that). He’s an NBA unicorn — in the worst way.

Without a stretch-5 (an NBA unicorn in the best way), it’s tough to justify having him on the court. But unsurprising to those familiar with Indiana last year, the Pacers might have such a player in Myles Turner.

At this point, Turner’s range is theoretical; he shot 27.4% from deep at the University Texas and attempted only 13 threes in his rookie season. He may still be the next Channing Frye; a good-looking stroke and 40.7% shooting on two-point jumpers have many convinced. Regardless: developing true range is not likely to happen in one season for a 20-year-old who still has a lot to learn.

A better bet: Turner functions as a respectable, Millsap-esque marksman, knocking down between 30% and 35% of his triples, providing the same type of Houdini spacing the Pacers hope to get from Thad. It won’t be the stable, Simpsons-reliable offense all teams crave, but it will be something. And if the Pacers play defense the way we’ve come to expect they may not need much more.

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When Turner’s triples are falling, Young will have room to roam on the short roll, crafting his way to the basket for the lefty finishes that butter his bread and kicking the ball out to open shooters when the defense collapses.

Young/Turner pick-and-pops could be a delightful quirk. Getting open jumpers off the pop can be easy in the best of times. They could be an oasis of open looks amidst the bench disaster Indiana featured for much of last season, and feeding Turner wide-open jobs could get him in rhythm. Should opponents switch — a near certainty if Turner is feeling it — Young could unleash some of his off-the-bounce funkiness. And if teams play in-between, creeping up without all-out trapping, Turner could slip the screen and roll hard to the rim, with Young’s size eliminating some of the trickiness of passing over the top of the defense.

And Indiana wants to run. Make no mistake, Thaddeus “Don’t Call Me Steve” Young can run. He’s fast enough to beat most traditional fours downcourt and skilled enough to lead the break himself, threading tightrope passes through defenders:

Finding the designated man to lead the break takes time and lets the defense recover. Having a big man who can grab and go is a nice headstart. The Pacers should consider letting Young run after makes.

There are only 24 seconds in each possession, and Young at full-tilt can penetrate against backpedaling defenders, drawing two to the ball and opening up looks that require much more huffing and puffing against set defenses.

Though, like Tobey Maguire’s uncle said, “With moderate transition ability comes a lot of bad shots.” Did he say that? It was either that or some BS about responsibility. If he did say that, he was right: It’s easy for players on the go to confuse highly contested close-rangers for good looks, and Young gets particularly antsy in crowds:

The Pacers need to run with discipline if they expect to reap all the benefits from Thaddeus Young’s end-to-end play. None of this will be worthwhile if Young matadors his way through possessions on the defensive end.

He’s never been known as a hound, but ESPN’s Real Plus Minus rated Young as a positive defensively, 27th best among power forwards.

Pencil me in among the doubters.

Don’t get me wrong, Young understands defensive rotations. He is almost always in the right place at the right time, and he’s willing to put a body on someone when he needs to.

This likely factored into Young’s positive RPM; just being where you’re supposed to will dissuade the most skittish paint-goers and then some.

But the best finishers in the league are not going to shy away, they will be eager to find out what happens when you challenge Thaddeus Young at the tin.

Olé.

With Thaddeus Young as the nearest defender, players shot a scorching 60.7% on attempts within six feet, per NBA.com. Watching him defend the rim can be a bit like watching a Game of Thrones fight scene: You know it’s going to end in the worst way possible, and yet it still shocks and offends you.

Thad keeps his hands down, enabling easy passes to dunkers, and fails the verticality test, shying away from airborne contact. And he gets overextended on the front lines, retreating to his man too early, giving up angles into the lane and leaving too much daylight for passes to the roll man.

A few years ago, these faults would have been a death sentence in a playoff series; smart opponents would have picked at Young’s scabs until he bled. But in the 2016 NBA, switching is always on the table, and his weaknesses may not be so glaring.

Switching negates the frantic help-and-recovers that he struggles with, and you don’t need an extra defender to protect the rim as long as you can defend isolations effectively. Thad fits the profile of a rangy, multipositional defender who could join the likes of Kevin Durant and Giannis Antetokounmpo on Team Guard-Everything-One-Through-Four.

This all sounds good in theory, but switching necessitates one-size-fits-all personnel, and the Pacers are all over the spectrum, from goliaths Myles Turner and Al Jefferson to kiddies Monta Ellis and Jeff Teague. Like most teams, Indiana will refuse to switch 1-5 pick-and-rolls and Young will be expected to pick up the slack when the initial containment strategy fails.

Thaddeus Young also isn’t the agile swapper his frame indicates. He doesn’t always get down in a defensive stance, sapping his lateral quickness against straight-line drivers.

He has other fundamentals problems.

Thad Young can get handsy like a drunk uncle, swiping for steals and giving up easy blow-bys and cheap fouls in the process:

It has been a sad reality of his game at times: The dude just doesn’t always try that hard on defense. I don’t want to lay it on too thick — he’s far from lazy. But for a few possessions every game, you can find him taking a breather.

I understand: It’s Brooklyn.

Brooklyn’s culture has been much-maligned, and they’re not exactly the poster children for all-out defensive effort. Maybe Young drank a bit too much of the Nets’ vodka-infused Kool-Aid. But this is non-chalanting through possessions in the playoffs. If you can’t get up for a game and down in a defensive stance when your entire season is on the line, when can you?

How you feel about the Thaddeus Young trade depends on how you feel about his game. Duh. Young’s cap hit for 2016-17 is roughly $12 million. With the deals that were signed this summer, that is pennies.

But it doesn’t matter how much other teams value other players. What matters is how much Young is worth to the Indiana Pacers. In my completely non-respected and unrequested opinion: Not enough.

Young mucks up the spacing, scares no one with hard rolls to the basket and — unless the Pacers get downright artistic manipulating matchups — isn’t anywhere near the walking mismatch he needs to be to justify his bugaboos. He just isn’t much of a value-add in the halfcourt.

The Pacers gave up $12 million in cap space along with the 20th overall pick to acquire him. $12 million wouldn’t have gotten them much — by itself — this summer. But added to the rest of the team’s space, it may have gotten them something.

The 20th pick in the draft also sounds like chump change; few teams expect to get value that late. But the Pacers have shown the ability to find gems (Solomon Hill, Miles Plumlee, Lance Stephenson), and this draft, while not star-studded, was particularly deep.

Let me state the obvious: I am not a fan of this trade. That said, Young’s avenue to being a net positive exists. His defensive issues are real, they always have been. But Charlotte rolls out Frankensteins with foot ailments and mummies with MCL tears every year without sieving points. Smart schemes can buoy talent, and Larry Bird is confident assistant coach Dan Burke can keep the defense afloat.

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Some added spacing could make Jeff Teague and Monta Ellis look like world-beaters, and Young has shown just enough touch on his jumper to make a decent year from beyond-the-arc semi-conceivable. Young can play fast and furious with the best of them, snapping up every last point lazy defenses leave for the taking, and players on opposite ends of the size spectrum can’t guard him.

The Pacers need to work their asses off to put Thaddeus Young in fertile situations. They wagered that a quirky, defense-optional big will be more valuable on a team that runs like they stole something and rolls out a top-5 defense in their sleep every year.

How true that proves is up to them.