Departing players Chicago Bulls fans should be sad to see go: Thaddeus Young
While it does stink for the Bulls that the team will be losing Temple and Sato heading into next season, it’s worse that the likes of Theis and veteran forward Thaddeus Young are out of the mix now. The Most Improved Player of the Year award contender from last season will now be playing for legendary head coach Gregg Popovich and the San Antonio Spurs in the upcoming campaign.
That is if the Spurs don’t trade him before the start of the coming season.
Karnisovas and the Bulls shipped off Young and fellow veteran forward Al-Farouq Aminu, along with two second-round draft picks, and a future first-round draft pick, to the Spurs to get star shooting guard/forward DeRozan. Giving up Young and that much future draft capital couldn’t be easy for the Bulls.
As was the case with the sign-and-trade deal for Lonzo from the Pelicans, though, the Bulls had to find a way to make the salary matching work. And most of all, the Bulls needed to find a way to finally get this team over the postseason hump since that seems to be the main goal at hand for Karnisovas and Eversley heading into next season.
What the Bulls will be missing with Young out of the mix is a true versatile veteran presence that was very valuable last season. Young was likely the second-most productive and efficient player for the Bulls last season (not including star center Nikola Vucevic) behind star shooting guard Zach LaVine.
Last season, Young registered a career-best 4.3 assists per game, 3.2 box plus/minus, 2.2 value over replacement player rating, 20.3 player efficiency rating, 27.1 assist percentage, and .147 win shares per 48 minutes. He was very solid at the right time for the Bulls and will be missed next season.