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2024 Free Agents - Thaddeus Young

Summary
Young brings most of his value on the defensive end, as he's a versatile defender who can guard multiple positions. Young has always been great at getting steals, finishing in the 79th percentile or better in steal rate for his position each season of his career (and 93rd percentile or better each of the last 11 seasons), per Cleaning the Glass, and he does it without being someone that gambles a lot on defense.

Although he came into the league as a wing, Young has transitioned to being more of a big at this stage of his career. He has even been playing some center in recent seasons. That might be his best position in today's NBA, as Young has never been a consistent 3-point shooter, hitting only 33% on a small number of attempts, so playing him at center allows teams to put four shooters around him. Young also has the playmaking skills to find teammates as the roll man, either in high-low situations or finding shooters.

Young is not as athletic as he was when he was younger, as he will be nearly 36 years old as a free agent in 2024, but he still moves pretty well and he's someone you can trust guarding out on the perimeter. He's also big enough to guard multiple positions. In '23-'24, he didn't play much for the Raptors, and only played sparingly for the Suns, so his career could be on the ropes.
 
Cap Considerations
Young will be an unrestricted free agent with a $2.1 million cap hold and Non-Bird Rights. This means that the highest starting salary the Suns could offer him using the Non-Bird Exception is $4 million. This should be enough to retain Young, since he settled for the minimum to come to Phoenix.

Other teams will have multiple ways to sign Young as even teams without cap space could possibly use any of the Non-Taxpayer MLE, Room MLE, Taxpayer MLE, or Bi-Annual Exception to sign him. It's also likely that Young only gets minimum offers, and may not even get fully-guaranteed offers.

Potential Teams: Suns, Heat, Clippers, Thunder, Celtics

Predicted Contract: 1-year, $3.3 million ($2.1 million cap hit) with the Suns

Last updated: 6/11/2024

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