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The departure of Thaddeus Young opens a spot in the Indiana Pacers starting unit for young and improving Domantas Sabonis in 2019-20.

That will be a big change for Sabonis, who was runner-up to Lou Williams — a distant one, to be fair — in the Sixth Man of the Year voting last season.

But it’s also not entirely unfamiliar territory for the fourth-year big, who started 66 games as a rookie for the Oklahoma City Thunder before morphing into a backup role behind center Myles Turner in Indianapolis.

Sabonis made a big leap again last season, averaging 14.1 points, 9.3 rebounds and 2.9 assists in 24.8 minutes per game, shooting 59 percent overall.

But he’s not a floor stretcher to this point, while he hit an amazing 52.9 percent of his deep attempts last season, it was in a tiny sample size (9-for-17).

Indiana played 3.3 points better per 100 possessions with Sabonis on the floor, and he continued to make huge strides as a finisher at the rim.

Sabonis converted 74.1 percent of his attempts in the restricted area last season, up from 66.9 percent the previous year and 55.1 percent as a rookie.

While there have been questions about how effective Indiana can be with Turner and Sabonis on the floor as a tandem, the pair played 429 minutes together last season, per stats.nba.com, and the Pacers were a plus-2.8 per 100 possessions in those joint appearances, covering 64 games.

Indiana was 38-26 in those games, for whatever that may be worth.

Sabonis may not be a huge threat to stretch the floor, but Turner is fully capable of stepping out beyond the arc, so it’s possible the Pacers can just transpose their roles at the offensive end, while Turner is a very good rim protector at the defensive end.