Thaddeus Young remains the glue of the Indiana Pacers, but the playoff series against the Cleveland Cavaliers vividly illustrated his value to the team.
Thaddeus Young, the glue guy of the Indiana Pacers.
It’s a clichéd description of a player, but the way the Pacers played without him on the court illustrated just how important he was to Indiana. Not just as a leader, not just for chemistry, but purely as a basketball player.
His 11.8 points and 6.3 rebounds clearly don’t illustrate that effect by themselves. The team’s second-best on/off rating (2.6+ on, -1.2 off) doesn’t illustrate it enough, either. Victor Oladipo was the team’s MVP, but he wouldn’t get as much done without Thaddeus on the floor. There is a reason why the two shared the floor the most of any two Pacers, and there’s a reason they were one of the most successful duos.
This isn’t a rant against analytics or stats — almost all of them say Young is a top 10 forward — but it’s clear that Young is critical to Indiana’s success. And this isn’t an endorsement of the eye-test, either which is often used to look past a player’s obvious flaws.
Thaddeus Young simply makes the Indiana Pacers better.
As far as the ‘glue guy’ label, Thad is OK with it anyway.
"“I’m an intangibles guy. A guy who does a little bit of everything, and I’m always there when you need me,” Young said. “In the end, it doesn’t matter if I’m a glue guy or anything, as long as I’m out there playing with my guys.” McMillan called him the glue of the team before Game 2, a title Young accepts. “I just look for consistency. It’s not about the things that show up in the stats. When I was on the court, what did I do as far as going out there defensively? Was I able to hold my guy down? Or was I able to do certain things like the intangibles?” Young said. “The steals, the rebounds, chipping in on blocked shots. Offense is going to come. I’ve always been a guy who didn’t need plays ran for me, I just play off my teammates and try to keep things together on the court.”"
Labels are usually shortcuts in sports talk, but in this case, Thad fits it. Oladipo is the heart of the team, but so much of what the Pacers do is possible due to Young’s versatility.
Thanks to his ability to cover from the two to the five positions reliability (at least in spurts within games), Indiana doesn’t have to worry as much if their power forward gets switched on pick and rolls, and he can disrupt almost any play.
He had the third most deflections in the NBA last season, 11 more than Oladipo, who made the NBA’s All-Defensive first team.
Offensively speaking, he often finds the gaps on the court to get open shots. When defenses help off of him, he makes them pay. Indiana rarely runs plays to get him the ball, but he leaks out into open spaces and floats towards the rim to present himself as an easy target for his teammates.
More from Pacers News
- 2 Studs, 1 dud from gut-wrenching Indiana Pacers loss to Charlotte Hornets
- Handing out early-season grades for Pacers’ Bruce Brown, Obi Toppin
- 3 positives, 2 negatives in Pacers In-Season Tournament win vs. Cavaliers
- 2 positives, 3 negatives from first week of Indiana Pacers basketball
- Should Isaiah Jackson’s days with Indiana Pacers be numbered?
But while he can make shots, it isn’t as if he’s an offensive dynamo for Indiana.
His 11.8 points a game were the third-lowest average of his career, only behind his first season with the Pacers. He is efficient inside the arc at 53.9 percent from the floor, but his 3-point shooting sagged to 31.6 percent, below his career average.
Most of his shooting came from within 10 feet of the basket. While he has range beyond that, he wasn’t stretching the floor for Indiana. It’s one reason why Pritchard is suggesting that the Pacers need a power forward that’s “a real stretch-four” for next season.
Young’s flexibility as a defender outweighs his limitations on offense, but for Indiana, they have to decide if that’s enough for them as they build around Victor Oladipo.
It’s hard to know for sure what’s next for Thaddeus Young. He enjoys playing on a playoff contending team, but before last season’s surprising run began, the Indiana Pacers had the appearance of a team ready to tank, not make the playoffs.
For Young, that moment gave him an uneasy feeling of déjà vu.
“Definitely, there was a ‘Here we go again’ moment with the situation with Paul (George) and other guys leaving this team,” Young said in an interview during the playoffs.
George headlined the departures, but with C.J. Miles and Jeff Teague leaving and Monta Ellis being waived, there was little left from the 2016-17 season but Thad, Myles Turner, and a few reserves.
It was looking like an all too familiar pattern for Young. A relatively successful team would begin its rebuild just as Young settled in. It appeared the pattern of continually ending up in the wrong place at the wrong time would repeat itself in Indiana.
The two players Indiana traded for — Victor Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis — were not proven commodities. Oladipo certainly showed promise as a scorer, but no one at the time expected him to make an All-Star team and lead the team to a 48-win season. Sabonis was too raw to know what to expect from him, either.
The consensus was the Pacers were a 30-win team going into the season even with the additions of veteran players Darren Collison, Bojan Bogdanovic, and Cory Joseph.
The pieces start to fit together for the Pacers
But once the roster started to take shape and Young started to work with his new (and old) teammates, his perspective changed.
“Once I got back in August and seen what we had and what guys had to offer, I was back on board,” Young said in April. He went on to explain that when the Pacers were pushing the Cavaliers to a seven-game series, that wasn’t a surprise at the time, either
More from 8 Points, 9 Seconds
- 2 Studs, 1 dud from gut-wrenching Indiana Pacers loss to Charlotte Hornets
- Handing out early-season grades for Pacers’ Bruce Brown, Obi Toppin
- 3 positives, 2 negatives in Pacers In-Season Tournament win vs. Cavaliers
- 2 positives, 3 negatives from first week of Indiana Pacers basketball
- Should Isaiah Jackson’s days with Indiana Pacers be numbered?
“What we’re doing now, I thought that in August where we had a lot of guys where we could do something, especially in the East,” Young said. “I knew some of the guys coming in and seeing what they could do in training camp and before training camp and was excited about what we had.”
And that was the moment for Young.
It wasn’t once the team was winning games last season. When he saw the team he was going to be playing with, he knew they weren’t going to be another team embracing losing for draft position.
“I’d seen the work ethic, what guys had to bring to the court as a far as talent-wise, I believed if we go out there and trust in our process as a team and not get tied up in the daily work, but continue to come in and to stay conscious of what we had to do as a team to get better, I knew we had a good team,” Young said.
While he might leave the team to test free agency, he certainly has indicated he isn’t in a rush to leave, either.
Young’s current contract situation
As reported on Monday, Young is considering opting out of the final season of his contract. While that move opens up a number of possibilities for the Pacers, it creates its own form of chaos.
What we do know is Thaddeus is under contract for at least one more season. Considering his glue-guy reputation, he fits in perfectly with this current group of Indiana Pacers.
However, Indiana isn’t satisfied with how they surprised everyone with their competitiveness. They’re going to look to improve their roster over the next two seasons and build around Victor Oladipo.
But Young can fit into an evolving role with the Pacers going forward. He often talks about winning taking the priority in his career. While he is in no rush to start playing off the bench, a season or two from now he might evolve into that role.
He’ll have to wait to see if the Pacers want to give him a long-term offer to make that possible.
Next: Thaddeus Young: What happens if he opts out?
His versatility on the court is exactly why Indiana or any other team will be interested in his services. Whether it’s in Indiana or somewhere else, Thad will likely serve as the connective tissue both on and off the court for his team.