Did Thad Young feel left out on deadline day? 'A little bit'
At Thursday's trade deadline, the Philadelphia 76ers shipped out Evan Turner, Lavoy Allen and Spencer Hawes, leaving Thad Young as the oldest player on the team and, save for the injured Jason Richardson, by far the most experienced.
At 25 years old and in his seventh season, Young has played 318 more NBA games than the next closest player on his team. It's incredibly rare to find a team this young and this inexperienced.
Which poses the question: why not Young? Why didn't Thad, who basketball Twitter has taken to calling "Left Behind," get dealt, as well? After all, he's also the team's highest paid played at $8.9 million, and he's on the books for $9.4 million next season, too. Perhaps a team didn't come correct with the asking price, or the Sixers felt the need to keep someone around who has actually been a rotation player in the league.
But if you're Young, stuck in the rebuild to end all rebuilds, it has to suck. And Young more or less admitted as much to Philadelphia Daily News on Saturday:
"This situation, I don't know how much worse it can get, but there's a lot of great guys in this locker room who can play. Hopefully, we can just go out there and get better as a team and continue to play hard."
And did he feel left out on Thursday?
"I am not going to lie, a little bit. Certain things don't always happen in your favor or it doesn't happen the way everybody else thinks it should play out. It's been a very tough year so far, but you try to make the best of the situation."
There may be one bright spot for Young, however, as he'll have the freedom to put up whatever stats he likes now. Some accused Evan Turner of being a looter in a riot, posting gaudy numbers at an inefficient clip on a bad team, but Young is a far more efficient offensive player.
The early returns indicate Young will be taking a lot of shots, as he fired up 29 attempts in Friday's loss to Dallas, scoring 30 points with 13 rebounds, six assists and seven steals in the process. That was, by far, a career-high in field goal attempts and nearly double the 15.2 he normally takes en route to 17.3 points.
The effieicncy may wane some, but Young is going to have the opportunity to put up some crazy numbers down the stretch.
[Dap: PBT]