Today, the NBA announced the roster for the 2009 T-Mobile Rookie Challenge & Youth Jam as voted on by the league’s assistant coaches.
Sixers forward Thaddeus Young was selected to the sophomore squad and is the team’s first representative in an All-Star Weekend event since the 2005-06 season.
Young is the 10th player in franchise history to participate in the Rookie Challenge and is looking to become the third to take home MVP honors (Allen Iverson in 1997 and Andre Iguodala in 2006). The game will be held on Friday, Feb. 13 in Phoenix.
“This is a definitely a great opportunity and I would like to thank everybody who voted for me,” Young said. “I'm looking forward to going out there to participate as a representative of the Sixers organization, to play as hard as I can and give the fans a good show.”
This season, Young has appeared in all 43 games with 39 starts and is averaging 13.7 points, 4.9 rebounds, 1.1 assists and 1.09 steals in 33.6 minutes per game while shooting 49.5% from the floor. He has the sixth-highest scoring average among sophomores and the eight-highest point/rebound/assist total.
Young has scored 20-plus points seven times this season after doing so four times in all of 2007-08. He has also led or tied for the team-lead in scoring 10 times this season after doing so once in 2007-08. Young has already hit 34 three-pointers this season after having just six 3FGM in 74 games played in 2007-08.
Last season, Young started 22 of the final 38 games for the Sixers, who went 24-14 over that span. He had the third-highest field goal percentage (53.9%) of any rookie and would have ranked tied for 10th in the NBA had he qualified. Young also had 73 steals to just 64 turnovers last season.
Young was the 12th overall pick by Philadelphia in the 2007 NBA Draft following his freshman season at Georgia Tech. Last season, the 20-year-old was the second-youngest player in the league behind Kevin Durant.
No comments:
Post a Comment