Thaddeus Young: Marriage Counselor, Bynum Non-Believer

We've always loved Thaddeus Young The Person more than Thaddeus Young The Basketball Player here at Liberty Ballers. He's just seemed like a fantastic human being who likes playing basketball, which sounds an awful like all of us at the blog. We're quite happy to hear that Thad has married his longtime girlfriend Shekinah, and he talks about the marriage a bit in this Philadunkia interview. So tell us, what is marriage like, Baby Legs?

Thad: It’s cool. It’s like, it was just like paperwork.

Ever the romantic! More from Hitch, our resident Date Doctor, after the jump.

On Doug Collins and the shortened schedule:

In practice, Coach Collins was laid back and got off us a little bit as far as practicing a whole bunch. He would let the guys rest a little bit. He would give us days off and just have a couple days to be prepared. I think we rested more last season than we did every other season. He was always on us about getting out rest and getting home and getting off our feet.

That's cool, especially because we were worried that the shortened schedule plus Doug's intensity plus a new unlimited text plan would make things unbearable. I'm sure the whole DOUG'S LOSING THE TEAM narrative was overblown a bit by that Fagan article. There's just so much behind the scenes stuff that we and even the regular, non-pajama'd media don't have access to.

On his feelings right after the Celtics game:

We knew some changes were gonna come. I didn’t know I was gonna be the last Sixer from my rookie year on the team.

[snip]

I thought it was going to be another year or two before we started moving pieces around and starting to figure out what we’re going to do. It was a situation where we had the contracts and it was a now or never type deal. They had to make a decision. I understand it’s a business.

That's kinda sad.

On Bynum!:

I was in the gym working out. And one of my good friends came running into the gym and said, "You guys traded for Bynum! "And I was like, what? He said, "No, you guys traded for Bynum." I said "Man, get out of here. I’ve got to work out. I don’t have time for your games right now", cause he had been making jokes about trades all summer. But when that happened he was like, "Man, I’m dead serious. Go look right now." When we got back to the house the chef was cooking and it popped up on the tube and I just thought, "Wow." I was very happy, I was excited, but I was also heartbroken and torn. You play with certain guys for so long that to see them go just like that. It was like, we were brothers and now they’re on another team. Since day one, I was on the team with Dre, Lou, and those guys. So it was kind of crazy to just see him go. But I understand it’s a business and life has to go on.

Favorite part has to be the casual "the chef was cooking" he drops right there in the middle. Of course the chef was cooking. He's my chef and I want food all the time. Let's be NBA players, guys.

And finally, on him as a starter:

I’d love to start. But whatever the team needs me to do I’m gonna do it, that’s the kind of person I am. But I definitely want to be a starter this year. I don’t think it really matters. It’s just a matter of going out there and playing. At the end of the day though, everybody wants to be a starter.

Love you Thad. Now go develop a jump shot and a right hand.