Thaddeus Young wanted to re-sign with Raptors

Thaddeus Young has reached a two-year, $16 million deal with the Toronto Raptors. Looking back at his end-of-season media availability, there were plenty of signs the veteran forward wanted to return to Toronto.

Video Transcript

THADDEUS YOUNG: This organization is elite, one of the top I've ever been a part of, amazing from day one, me coming here. Toronto, the city, the fans, another amazing source and opportunity. And I loved everything about this experience.

The sky's the limit for every individual on this team for the simple fact of, like I think we have a good mixture of young guys with some veteran guys, and obviously, like, me being the elder statesman. But this team can be really, really scary. You're seeing what we were able to do [INAUDIBLE] and almost able to kind of overcome a huge deficit.

But the one thing about this team is its will, its fight, its continue to be resilient, fight through adversity. It speaks volumes to the character of everybody on this team. We're not just going to go down without a fight. We're going to continue to play as hard as we can.

By far, this is one of the best organizations that I've played for. Some really, really great employees and staff. And the medical staff down-- up to the coaches and front office is elite. And it's the reason why this organization has had success over the years.

I think this team is on the cusp of doing something that's very unique, but it's effective. I mean, you've seen we were able to win games with a bunch of 6' 8" guys.

- Yeah.

THADDEUS YOUNG: And the good thing about this group is there's a lot of interchangeable pieces that can play a lot of different parts and a lot of different roles. And everybody can step in and fulfill any role that's needed to be fulfilled. And that's the great part about having so many guys that's versatile guys.

I think defense sometimes is a lost art. But this team, this year, for the time that I've been here, we've been pretty focused and locked in on the defensive side of the basketball and done a pretty good job of turning teams over, and pushing the ball down their throats, and making sure that we're getting easy buckets in transition, but also executing on the offensive end as well.

I like that it's very diverse. It's a multicultural city, and that the fans are-- they're amazing. They all say great game and stuff like that, but they're not overbearing fans. They're not stopping me and asking for 25 pictures, and stuff like that, or they're not breaking up me and my wife at dinner or breaking up me and my kids hanging out. Yeah, they're looking and waving and stuff like that. But I like that about the fans. I like that about this city.

And then just the fact that there's always something to do. This is a great city. Toronto is amazing. The fans are amazing. Like I said, this organization is amazing. Everything is just elite about this experience. And it was a great experience for me.