Thaddeus Young opts in after flirting with free agency
By Jason Patt
Thaddeus Young will take his $13.7 million for 2018-19 instead of becoming a free agent.
Veteran forward Thaddeus Young was considering declining his $13.7 million player option with the Indiana Pacers for the 2018-19 season in order to become an unrestricted free agent, but the 30-year-old has decided to exercise the option instead, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
Young has been the Pacers’ starting power forward the last two seasons. He averaged 11.8 points, 6.3 rebounds and 1.9 assists in 32.2 minutes per game this past year as Indiana surprisingly earned the No. 5 seed in the Eastern Conference. The veteran put up 11.3 points and 7.7 rebounds per game while shooting 60 percent from the field in the Pacers’ seven-game series loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers in the first round.
While Young’s stellar production, leadership and toughness are valuable, the potentially cool free-agent market likely would have hindered his earning power. With so few teams set to have cap space, he would have been a good target for the mid-level exception, which starts at nearly $9 million for 2018-19. Taking the $13.7 million and then hitting the market in 2019 when more teams are set to have space is the smart play.
Young’s decision changes the calculus only slightly for a run at Orlando Magic restricted free agent Aaron Gordon. Woj has reported the Pacers’ interest in offering Gordon an offer sheet worth around $20 million annually. While Young’s deal takes up a good amount of cap space, Indiana has the flexibility to carve out the space for a Gordon offer sheet thanks to a trio of partially guaranteed deals.
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Bojan Bogdanovic, Darren Collison and Al Jefferson all have partial guarantees on contracts that are worth around $10 million when fully guaranteed. Decisions on Bogdanovic and Collison have to be made now, but even with those two deals fully guaranteed the Pacers will have a good amount of space to make a big offer and can open up even more by not guaranteeing one or both contracts. Jefferson’s deal doesn’t become fully guaranteed until January.
The Magic very well could match a big Gordon offer sheet despite their frontcourt logjam, but it would be worth a shot for Indiana. If Orlando didn’t match, Gordon would slot in as the Pacers’ new long-term starting power forward nexts to Myles Turner and Young would be a valuable sixth man, plus a potential trade chip.