The Loop

The Indiana Pacers got roasted for a stat comparing Thaddeus Young to four NBA legends

March 01, 2018

Magic. Bird. Michael. LeBron. Thaddeus?

On Wednesday night, the Indiana Pacers tweeted out a curious stat that managed to group Thaddeus Young (Yes, Thaddeus Young) with four of the NBA's all-time greatest players. Not surprisingly, the team got absolutely roasted for their efforts. First, because we know even the most hardcore basketball fans would have no clue how Young could possibly be linked to these legends, here's the tweet:

OK then. . .

Granted, we live in an age of somewhat contrived statistics. On Tuesday, LeBron James(one of those fortunate four to be grouped with Thaddeus Young) became both the oldest player to average a triple-double over an entire month and the first player in NBA history to reach career totals of 30,000 points, 8,000 assists and 8,000 rebounds. While many were amazed by those accomplishments, many scoffed at their particular importance. Regardless, it's not hard to see those are a heckuva lot more impressive than the numbers Thaddeus Young has produced in an 11-year career for four different teams.

And what about some of those parameters? 13.5 points? Decent. 5.9 rebounds? Again, decent, but where did the .9 come from? 1.4 steals? Pretty good, but .4? And 30 percent from 3? That's not even good! SMH as the kids say. Look, Young is a solid NBA player, but c'mon. To be honest, I follow the NBA pretty closely and I didn't even know he was still on the Pacers. Anyway, here were some of the not-so-kind reactions:

After the tweet, Thad padded the stats to the tune of 11 points and 5 rebounds on 46% shooting from the field at 33% from downtown. In other words, it was a vintage Thaddeus Young performance. We are all witnesses.