In defense of Thaddeus Young

I wrote back on Sunday that trading for Thad Young would be a mistake – that he wasn’t enough of an upgrade over Terrence Jones to warrant losing Asik.  Forum member 2016Champions makes a compelling case in favor of Young arguing that, we shouldn’t be looking at a Young trade as a replacement of Jones but rather of Omri Casspi:

- We can rest Parsons more. We don’t want Parsons to make the same mistake T-Mac (or Larry Bird) did.

- We need a perimeter defender and Young is a good defender (DRAPM of 1.7–only Josh Smith, Al-Farouq Aminu and Kirilenko was higher among stretch 4′s last season)

- He gives us more depth at the 3 and 4

- Regardless of whether he starts or comes off the bench, he will be eating mostly into Casspi’s minutes and he’s a HUGE upgrade over the underrated “Great Casspi”.

Additionally, he argues, Young provides depth as Parsons insurance.  We’ve seen the Rockets weather injuries to Jeremy Lin and James Harden because of interchangeability with Aaron Brooks; things have fallen apart without Parsons.  Also notice the cited DRAPM.  While I disagree with classifying Young as a “perimeter defender” as that data was compiled with him playing the ’4′, he’s a plus defender.

While I still think future draft considerations are the way to go, Young seems to be a more viable option if viewed from this perspective.

View this discussion from the forum.

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