Pacers forward Thaddeus Young is strongly considering the possibility of opting out of his contract and becoming an unrestricted free agent next month, Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reports.
Young holds a $13.7MM option on his contract and has until June 29th to exercise it.
By opting out, Young could land a long-term deal in the prime of his career, Wojnarowski continues. His ability to guard multiple positions would make him valuable on the open market.
Yet it’s very possible that Young will wind up with a lower salary next season if he goes into the free agent market in exchange for long-term security.
The Pacers could try to work out a contract extension with Young, Wojnarowski adds. He averaged 11.8 PPG and 6.3 RPG this past season for Indiana, which pushed the Cavaliers to seven games during the opening round of the Eastern Conference playoffs.
After the team was eliminated, Young expressed high hopes for Indiana’s future. “Man, I think the sky is the limit for us,” he said. “As a team, we’re already pretty good, but I think we’ll be so much better entering next season because we’ll all have another year of experience under our belt and we won’t be a new-look team that just got together anymore.”
The 6’8” Young, who will celebrate his 30th birthday this month, has been in the league since 2007. He’s also played for the Sixers, Timberwolves and Nets.
Yeah don’t opt out bro. You’re not gonna get a high annual salary from anyone and I don’t think his worth will decline much with an extra year. Yes, there’s always the risk of injury, but with the 2018 cap situation looking a little dire for half the league, I’d wait
The money just might not be that important to him considering his earnings since entering the league. Injury is a risk when opting in, for sure, but I think the risk for young extends far beyond injury. A slight dip in minutes or production (or both) and suddenly he’s entering 2019 FA as a 31 year old averaging 9ppg and 5rbs. I doubt a team, in that scenario, goes more than 2 years on Young, if that. given the season that he’s had I could see a ton of teams being willing to offer up the mid level over 4 years for Young, and that would be his floor. If he truly does value the long term security over the salary (just my speculation) then the margin for error for Young would be very small if he opts in for next year.
I wrote an analysis piece about how Thaddeus Young’s decision with his player option could impact the Indiana Pacers: link to indianasportscoverage.com
Indiana is 28th in team salary. Time for a renegotiation.
Young is a solid player, either way hope he gets what he needs/wants.
Nice role player, like the Morris brothers. That’s the salary figure hes likely to garner… 8M range. I’d play this out. We know what you are. Although a lot of those mid level guys are FAs next year, so that is prob his mindset.