Don't think it is that simple at all. There is a world where Tatum is the answer for all those, and a different bizarro world where Ant is the answer
Tatum or Ant?
- Thread starter Kliq
- Start date
Just so people know I'm not a blind Tatum homer, I thought that
- his Miami series was great
- that first Cleveland game was very subpar
His FG% was bad/meh in both cases, but against Miami, he was consistently drawing guys to the ball, manipulating the defense, and forcing rotation. Once he tore that apart, Spoelstra stuck Bam on him, he moved into decoy mode, and the other guys cooked.
Against Cleveland, he didn't force tons of extra help. They mostly handled him, he missed a lot of shots, and wasn't a consistent problem. I expect him to improve, but it was not a great offensive game.
(He was good defensively and on the glass, which always helps his value in general, since those things are low-variance.)
- his Miami series was great
- that first Cleveland game was very subpar
His FG% was bad/meh in both cases, but against Miami, he was consistently drawing guys to the ball, manipulating the defense, and forcing rotation. Once he tore that apart, Spoelstra stuck Bam on him, he moved into decoy mode, and the other guys cooked.
Against Cleveland, he didn't force tons of extra help. They mostly handled him, he missed a lot of shots, and wasn't a consistent problem. I expect him to improve, but it was not a great offensive game.
(He was good defensively and on the glass, which always helps his value in general, since those things are low-variance.)
I’ve got to ask about the rebounding thing specifically as it relates to this Cleveland game because a lot of posters have brought it up.
Were any of those rebounds because Tatum was doing anything special? It seems like most of them were a function of the defense they were playing where Tatum was closest to the basket.
Not a great example, but Kornet was awesome on the boards tonight in a way that stood out. I didn’t really notice anything like that with Tatum (or any other player sans Kornet).
I thought Tatum was good overall against Miami, and I thought he was good to very good on defense tonight. He kind of noticeably stunk on offense. He had some good passes and set some players up but the majority of the offense was White and Brown (Beige Bros) creating.
Were any of those rebounds because Tatum was doing anything special? It seems like most of them were a function of the defense they were playing where Tatum was closest to the basket.
Not a great example, but Kornet was awesome on the boards tonight in a way that stood out. I didn’t really notice anything like that with Tatum (or any other player sans Kornet).
I thought Tatum was good overall against Miami, and I thought he was good to very good on defense tonight. He kind of noticeably stunk on offense. He had some good passes and set some players up but the majority of the offense was White and Brown (Beige Bros) creating.
No time to find examples now, but he definitely had some value-add rebounds where he was part of an overall focus to clean up the defensive boards. Because he's tall and strong, he's good at that focus.
Tatum gets almost all the uncontested defensive boards. I recall him being annoyed because Tristan Thompson wanted the stats too. A year or so ago I did a post about how the % of rebounds that are offensive has declined steadily to the point defensive rebounding stats for individuals are almost meaningless. Westbook's triple doubles were lame becasue of this.
My take on the comparison is the that NBA observers love the angry, hyper-competitive guy that can go get his own shot in the model of Jordan, maybe too much. This preference leads to Kobe being massively overrated and Lebron, Magic, being underrated. Ant has those beloved qualities, whereas Tatum is better when he doesn't play that way. Tatum's game tonight is classic example of his all around play, where he didn't score a lot because they didn't need him to score a lot.
If the Celtics and Wolves can play three finals against each other this matchup will be a lot like, and maybe just as good as Bird vs Magic.
My take on the comparison is the that NBA observers love the angry, hyper-competitive guy that can go get his own shot in the model of Jordan, maybe too much. This preference leads to Kobe being massively overrated and Lebron, Magic, being underrated. Ant has those beloved qualities, whereas Tatum is better when he doesn't play that way. Tatum's game tonight is classic example of his all around play, where he didn't score a lot because they didn't need him to score a lot.
If the Celtics and Wolves can play three finals against each other this matchup will be a lot like, and maybe just as good as Bird vs Magic.
Yep. HRB’s clarification puts us pretty much in the same place. If you forced me to choose today it would really depend on team context. If my team is a contender, I’d take Tatum. Put differently, I would not trade Tatum for Ant straight up if I were Brad Stevens. On the other side of this, I also don’t think I would trade Ant for Tatum if I were running the Wolves. And I suspect that if I thought about it for most NBA situations, I’d take the upside of Ant. (If I were Philly or OKC, however, and you told me I could use my cap space this offseason on one of them, it would be Tatum. But if you gave me that choice as the Spurs it would definitely be Ant.)
I'm sure I'm not the only one to notice: in round two series, first game, the #1 in the East and the West beat their #4-#5 by almost identical scores. Boston over Cleveland, 120-95, and OKC over Dallas, 117-95. Symmetry.
Edit: oops, meant to post this in Cavs vs. Celts thread.
Edit: oops, meant to post this in Cavs vs. Celts thread.
If we are just talking about the first 6 playoff games of 2024, I don't think there's a serious argument to be made that Tatum has been the better player or that it is even a close question. At the end of the day, no one will or should care about the first 6 playoff games, of course, but so far it is what it is.
Tatum is to uncontested rebounds what Pritchard is to garbage time offense. It’s not a criticism but to look at raw rebounding numbers without this context is missing a lot of what’s actually occuring. This doesn’t make him a poor rebounder but let’s understand how things work here.