Celtics Draft Jayson Tatum at #3
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Stat of the day: Someone figured out that Tatum's 3-pt. percentage is higher than Lonzo's ... FT percentage (51.3% to 50%). So to put that in perspective: Lonzo is shooting worse at uncontested shots from the foul line than Tatum is when he's got a hand in his face (or a defender closing on him), from farther out, and at different points along the long arc of the 3-pt. line. Insane.
On a team with Kyrie, I'd strongly question flipping him for Wall, Westbrook or Curry. (Edit: now I see you said "irrespective of need," but that's too abstract for me).
Agreed with Bosox79 that you couldn't really say no to Jokic. A 3-4-5 of Hayward-Jokic-Horford would be insane. And then add Kyrie and Jaylen? Wow.
Without considering $$$ ramifications, I'd at least consider Paul George, Covington, Otto Porter, Draymond, and Klay.
Agreed with Bosox79 that you couldn't really say no to Jokic. A 3-4-5 of Hayward-Jokic-Horford would be insane. And then add Kyrie and Jaylen? Wow.
Without considering $$$ ramifications, I'd at least consider Paul George, Covington, Otto Porter, Draymond, and Klay.
Could certainly make an argument for Jokic. Drummond I’m more on the fence about. I excluded Kyrie since he’s a teammate but he’d be on the list if he weren’t. If Embiid has another major injury, he comes off for me.
Covington is more than 7 years older than Tatum and is a career 40%/36% shooter. That would be an insane trade.
The fact that this conversation is not totally wack tells you all that you need to know about Tatum.
We can disagree on the particulars but the list is short, and that's not even considering his contract. Mind blowing luck.
It's a pretty interesting discussion, and basically hard to answer because Tatum's first 25 games compare well with any of those guys, but of course that's no guarantee he progresses as they did. I know WS/48 isn't a great measure, but as a quick comparison (and a per-game catch-all stat), looking for rookies (under 23, in the 3-pt era, with 25+ games and 20+min/game), WS/48:
Jordan .213
Faried .212
Tatum .198
Duncan .192
Ilgauskas .189
Jokic .185
Bird .182
Magic .180
The guys on that list who put up those numbers while playing 30+ min/game are Jordan, Tatum, Duncan, Bird, Magic. By BPM, Tatum's a bit lower (20th), but the list of guys around him is similarly impressive.
Now, there's a decent chance Tatum doesn't fit these criteria by the end of the year, and a near certainty he doesn't end up with a career anywhere near those guys, but I think the start he's had requires that you think hard about any deal he'd be included in, if you're also considering things like salary and years of control.
Yup. Not sure who in the 2018 draft I would take over him based on what we currently know. Maybe Doncic but that would be a pretty big leap of faith. We’re 25 games into his career and the list is down to 15-20 players, depending on your preference.
Yeah, basically agreed. And while I said "without considering $$$ ramifications," the fact that Tatum is cost-controlled for the next three seasons gives him a big leg up on almost everyone on that list. But if you totally ignored dollars and were in total "go for it now" mode (i.e. mostly talking about expected production over the next 2-3 seasons) I could see opting for Covington over him.
If we're considering money, and talking expected production over the next 9-10 seasons, I'd strongly question flipping Tatum for 33 y.o. LeBron.
Jokic is making less than 1.5 million this season, and Denver has a club option for 1.7 mil next year. When you have a talent like that locked up for so cheap, it lets you do a lot of interesting things cap wise.
I'd probably say no to Myles Turner but I'd pause for awhile. We are picturing what Tatum will become but Turner is 21 himself, Jokic 22.
I'm also not sure Tatum would be lock for ROY if it weren't for Ben Simmons. I'd think Kuzma and Mitchell would get votes. Mitchell has been absolutely nuts his last 5 games and he's being asked a lot.
I'd probably say no to Myles Turner but I'd pause for awhile. We are picturing what Tatum will become but Turner is 21 himself, Jokic 22.
I'm also not sure Tatum would be lock for ROY if it weren't for Ben Simmons. I'd think Kuzma and Mitchell would get votes. Mitchell has been absolutely nuts his last 5 games and he's being asked a lot.
If we're just starting a team from scratch, I would have to think long and hard about Tatum versus Donovan Mitchell and that's not a knock on JT. Tatum probably has a higher ceiling given his height/length but Mitchell is a surer bet to become a top 20-25 player eventually in my opinion. The guy can score from anywhere and the combination of usage/efficiency that he has been showing in the last month is pretty special for a rookie.
Edit: Didn't see bosox79's post before writing this but second those thoughts too.
Edit: Didn't see bosox79's post before writing this but second those thoughts too.
Considering Ainge traded down from #1 specifically to draft Tatum and bag an extra lottery pick in the process, I wouldn't call it luck.
We'll have to see if he hits a wall, but if he stayed at 51.3%, that would be 8th all time for a single season. Had he hit 2 more of his threes so far this season, he would be at #1 (Korver, 53.6%).
That's some good talent evaluation. I hear the Sacramento Kings are looking for a new GM.
From all accounts, the Celtics themselves weren't willing to do Tatum for Kyrie, and Brad and Danny clearly LOVED Kyrie at the time.
This is a point against Jokic actually: if Denver uses the club option, he becomes a UFA, and that's a road they'll never go down, since then you're dealing with a pissed off guy (had to play a year without set-for-life security) whose has all options available.
Jokic will be getting paid hard, starting next year.
That’s probably because they had the Nets and Lakers/Kings picks to deal instead and knew Cavs would have to accept. Without those, it would have been interesting to see what Ainge would have done.
Is the hold on his contract for next year 1.7m then? They could sign some guys before they pay Jokic if that is the case. Or maybe they closed that loophole.
Y'all might trade Tatum for Jokic but there's no way DA would. Wings who can score and can guard multiple positions are way too valuable - particularly with the system Brad runs and given the fact that the road to the NBA championship is going through people like LBJ and Durant and Giannis (probably in the future).
Yeah, I meant lucky to be a fan of this team. We were in the conference finals last year, and we're having a non-crazy conversation about a fairly small list of players that we would trade our 19yo rookie for.
Haha, fair. My other compelling reason for questioning that trade is that the resulting team would probably kick my Warriors’ asses.
I never realized Detlef Shremp shot .514 from 3 one year. He's actually a much better shooter than I recalled. He didn't even lead the league that year, Steve Kerr at .524.
Plus to show how much the game has changed, that year (1994-95) Schremp attempted 2.2 3 pointers per game while playing 35.2 minutes per game. Kerr averaged 2.1 attempts in 22.4 mpg.
Harden this year is averaging an insane 11 attempts per game!!
even Tatum is averaging 3 attempts per game in 30.4 minutes (and it seems like he should be getting many more looks to these eyes) and my hope is he can get more aggressive in all phases with another summer and season or two and turn into a better version of someone like Paul George. No reason to believe he can't be that type of player.
Harden is ridiculous this year, hitting .405 of his 3s to date. Gordon, OTOH, has been atrocious at .312 and is jacking up just as many. More than half the Rockets shots are from 3.
I still have yet to read a satisfactory explanation as to how the fuck he managed to pull that off.
Isn’t that endogenous to the equation though?
I mean, he had the picks because he’s Danny Ainge.
Absolutely. My interest was more in wondering what Ainge does with Kyrie if he’s just Joe Schmoe GM who doesn’t have a treasure trove of picks to deal. Basically, if Ainge didn’t have the Nets and Lakers/Kings picks, does he make the trade with Tatum? My guess is that he reluctantly does.
The Celtics were *really* high on Tatum after summer league. I think he would have required a player one tier up from Kyrie to do the deal.
A lot of members here, at the time, thought that the trade was meh at best, retarded at worst, and that Danny was taking a huge risk by not taking the consensus #1 guy.
Sixers fans were extremely pleased with the deal.
Getting 4 years of production on a rookie deal is enormous value and allows you to do other things with your cap/tax space. An added benefit of accumulating all of these lottery picks is that you are filling your rotation with the cheap rookie deals of Smart, Rozier, Jaylen, and Tatum.
I'll raise my hand. Not the first time I was wrong, won't be the last, but probably my favorite time.
I'm sure he played the Lakers against the Sixers. Regardless of what they said publicly, they had to have prefered Fultz to Ball. Danny was taking Tatum either way, but he controlled who got Fultz. The Sixers thought that the extra pick was worth the difference between Fultz and Ball, and even with Fultz being injured, they're probably correct.
Hmm. Even with Ball not being able to shoot, you have to be really high on Fultz to make this argument. And with what Fultz has shown in his limited time, I am not sure how anyone can be that high on him.
A top 5 pick is so damn valuable. To make up for that value loss, the difference between Ball and Fultz has to he ridiculously large. And I am not seeing that
Why would he have to try to convince the Sixers that the Lakers might take Fultz when he could just convince them that he will take Fultz? And why wouldn't he actually do so once he knows Philly covets him? It's not like he can't trade the player after making the pick.
I disagree. The Lakers and Magic knowing marketing and the buzz over Ball in LA was through the roof. He singlehandedly sold out 20,000 seat summer league games nearly 3 hours from LA when they traveled to see him arriving the day prior. The gap between Fultz and Ball would have had to be enormous for the Lakers to select Fultz over him and I don't feel it was. IMO, there wasn't a scenario where the Lakers pass on Ball at 2.
And any good scouting would tell him that the crowds would disperse in short order if Ball was shit. If Fultz reaches his potential, the "Buzz" would last for 15 years.
In other words, I don't think it mattered. They're the Lakers. Magic wasnt in a spot where they had to make a splash for a rookie. Theyd take the best player available for their need. They wanted a PG, and in no world was Lonzo graded higher than Fultz.
This paragraph is a really strong argument for not letting Magic Johnson anywhere near personnel decisions, ever.
I'm convinced that if DA were running the 76ers, he would have had Fultz and the BRK pick from the Cs.
But seriously - just think of it from the 76ers POV. Everyone's got Fultz #1 on the board. The Cs have IT4 injured. The 76ers have Simmons who can't shoot. If they don't get Fultz, they have to choose among Ball, who can't shoot (if the Lakers don't take him); Jackson, who has a funky shot; and Tatum, who at that time wasn't seen as having 3P range. And then there was Fox, who had shooting questions, and Issac, who could shoot but had other issues.
PHI really really wanted Fultz. And DA took advantage of that.
Currently (and obviously it's too early to tell much of anything) Ball is not a viable NBA starter so it is conceivable one might conclude the gap is that large. Of course, its not clear Fultz is physically able to play so.....
Not to relitigate this, but many stats models, and some scouting types had Lonzo ahead of Fultz.
Before the lottery, I was hoping the Celtics would land the 2nd pick, so Danny would be forced to draft Ball (I obviously didn't anticipate a trade).
I briefly thought you were raising your hand at the use of that phrase, which is still somehow acceptable here.
I'm the last guy to be PC police around here, but unless you meant delayed, don't use this word.
I don't get to watch a lot of C's games here, but always check the stat sheets. Tatum's traditional numbers look solid, but is approximately 14/5/2 really enough to put him in the rarefied air everyone here is? I get he's young and his shooting percentages are amazing, but I never would've thought he'd have the prospects people here are laying out for him.
The best traditional stats to check (for any player IMO but most certainly rookies) if you don't get a chance to watch the game are the field goal percentages, turnovers and assists. His numbers above just don't get at his efficiency. Also, traditionally rookies just don't do the things this rookie class is doing.
His efficiency is off the charts right now. Averaging 14ppg on only 9 shots/g is pretty special. He’s not far away from averaging 20ppg in his sleep. Of course, given the talent on the team and the mouths to feed, that may be a couple years away.
He's also been surprisingly good defensively. I know it's hard(er) to quantify, but to my eye he's not missing a ton of assignments and can keep up with most players better than expected. He'll occasionally get bullied physically, but he has the frame to add weight over the next couple of years. Overall his feel for the game seems off the charts for someone his age.
Just to follow the line of questioning: wasn't the knock on him that he had a high floor and low ceiling? If that's the case, isn't the bigger concern that he doesn't really grow from what he's doing right now?