In defense of the most infamous stat combo in the history of on-air graphics, a thread 🧵

The most justifiable part of the Thad Young graphic is the game count. The image aired Feb 28, 2018, on the night of Young's 800th game. And if we're celebrating Thad, it's fair to use an 800-game cutoff. Dropping the threshold down to 250 would've added Kawhi! and Clark Kellogg.

I've always assumed that these specific stat cutoffs were cherry-picked to include Thad and exclude as many other players as possible, but that's not quite right. Here's how the graphic would have looked if they used 10 PPG instead of 13.5.

Same thing with the rebounds - dropping it down to 5 RPG instead of 5.9 would have yielded the same group. 13.5/5.9 were just Thad's career stats at that point.

Dropping the quirky 1.4 steal cutoff in favor of a nice round 1 steal per game would have added just one player to the list - Paul Millsap.

49% from the floor feels like the silliest part of the whole thing (you were this close🤏to 50). And they could have dropped FG%, too. It would have expanded the graphic by just three, adding Scottie Pippen, Clyde Drexler, and Shawn Marion.

Hilariously, Thad was 49.93% from the field for his career as of Feb 28, 2018. A less scrupulous graphic designer might have rounded up to 50 and called it a day. But! that would have crossed MJ and Bird off the list 😲

30% from three is the only round number that was used in the graphic. And it's only fishy because it's such a preposterously low cutoff. Clearly it was tossed in to shorten the list a little, but who were we trying to keep out?

imo, a more natural cutoff might have been 33% 3P% (1 point per shot). So why 30? It wasn't for Thad!

Incredibly, over the course of his 16-year, 1172-game career, Thad met the criteria for the infamous graphic for one night only 😂 He scored 11 points on Feb 28th dropping his career average to 13.499 points per game and he never got back to 13.5 again.

@CrumpledJumper I’m always impressed with how you find inspiration in things most people (me included) just nod thoughtfully at before moving on ha. Great read.

@bballispoetry Glad you liked it 🙌

@CrumpledJumper This is incredible stuff Todd!!! One of your best posts yet!!

@WarriorsMuse 😂

@CrumpledJumper Unroll @threadreaderapp

@CrumpledJumper Great thread

@CrumpledJumper Ant has 500 games to lift his REB by .7; FG% is harder, but he's got a better eFG% than Bird and Jordan. Different era.

@CrumpledJumper Top 10 greatest threads on NBA twitter history ngl.

@CrumpledJumper This was awesome to read

@CrumpledJumper Is there some central data base to find these stats quickly?

@CrumpledJumper Just goes to show how hard it is to be even adequately productive in that many categories for 10 years worth of games

@CrumpledJumper The fact that he no longer qualifies for his own graphic is hilarious

@CrumpledJumper Have any other players met all the criteria at some point in their career?

@CrumpledJumper So if this was the night of his 800th game and during the course of the game fell below the points stat, doesn’t that mean he never actually qualified? Am I misreading this?

@CrumpledJumper @JoshEberley @willstevens31

@CrumpledJumper Good thread, as a UK sports fan I always find Americans’ love of super specific stats quite amusing. There are so many categories, you could probably find something for every player.

@CrumpledJumper If you run the query today with 10 ppg, does Thad rejoin the Big 4?

@CrumpledJumper So basically Thad Young is top 10 all time!

@CrumpledJumper Has anyone temporarily made the cutoff and then dropped out again (like Thad)?