Veteran power forward Thaddeus Young was one of the most sought-after names in free agency this summer. Admittedly, he by no means fell in the same category as the likes of Kevin Durant and Kawhi Leonard, but nevertheless, a number of teams were eyeing Young as a potential addition to their squad for the coming season.
It was the Chicago Bulls that ended up as the winners of the Thaddeus Young lottery, and recently, the 31-year-old shed some light on what motivated him to make the move from his former team, the Indiana Pacers, to the Windy City.
“Obviously, those guys are still like my brothers. We still talk all the time. I talked to Vic the other day about how different it is for them and how much learning the guys have to do about incorporating their system,” Young said, when asked about his relationship with his former Pacers teammates, via K.C. Johnson of NBC Sports. “I have strong ties there. I’m proud of what we built from a culture standpoint.”
Young went on to say, however, that he felt it was time to move on from Indiana, and that the Bulls presented a new challenge for him that he saw more fitting to his status at this point in his career.
“But I felt this was a better opportunity for me,” he explained. “Kev and them decided to make the decision to have Domas (Domantas Sabonis) and Myles (Turner) play together a little more and bring in guys who are younger, try to make that shift sooner rather than later. There’s no bad blood. We have great mutual respect for one another. We built culture together there. We helped kind of reshape the franchise. They’re a playoff contending team each year. Now the focus is on trying to do that here, focus on getting these guys better.”
Young signed a very lucrative three-year, $41 million deal with Chicago this summer, and surely, he will be eager to take the court to prove that he is worth every penny of his massive contract.
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