Celtics Plan, Summer 2021
- Thread starter lovegtm
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At the age of 22 Kawhi was a defensive stopper with a good, but not great, offensive game. Tatum is way ahead of Kawhi's offensive curve. It's not a stretch to think that Prime Jayson Tatum is going to be an unstoppable monster (I mean he's pretty much already there given his late season shooting spree).
Betting on Jayson Tatum having lots more upside at each stage has, so far, been a much better bet than selling him short.
Chris Paul is a Superstar, not sure how this can be debated. Devin Booker a Top-20 guy (star in my book), and how many Centers would rank above Ayton right now? Top flight?......defends on definition but I’d certainty consider him in the small group behind Jokic, Embiid, and Gobert. So weird to me that you don’t see 3 stars on this Suns team.
Kevin McHale also made one All-NBA Team.....he’d make a pretty good “third banana” too I suppose.
Top-100 All Time Points & Rebounds with career cut short (one of fewer than 60 players to accomplish this)
Top-70 All Time Win Shares with career cut short.
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Yeah, that’s the thing with JayTay, he has grown by leaps and bounds through four years in the league. And he still has another 2-3 years left to grow his game.
Offensively he’s already nearly what Kawhi was in his brief prime. About all that separates them is FTA, which Tatum is obviously working on (given how strong he’s gotten in just the last year). Tatum is a better shooter than Leonard ever was.
Not the world's best comp, since he was 4th in MVP voting once and all NBA 1st team, not 2nd. Much more efficient player than Bosh and better defensively (although overrated).
At his peak, damn good second banana. His peak wasn't very long, and no team was ever going to win an NBA title with him as its best player. But yeah, I'd love that guy. He'd be harder to find than a Bosh.
People are thinking of Heat or Warriors level "3 stars", and the Suns certainly aren't that. I think they're a good indication of what you can win with currently in the NBA if things break right, young wings develop, and you get a couple of the right vets/reclamations.
And yes, healthy Chris Paul is a superstar. I actually think Booker has quietly been a bit disappointing at times (agree w your ranking of him), but Paul....man.
I honestly think the Suns model may be even harder to replicate than the “3 Superstar model”.
They got 1 star and another really, really good player in the late lottery (Booker and Mikal Bridges), have a #1 pick in Ayton and, most importantly, acquired a superstar who’s still playing at that level for basically nothing.
I just don’t see how you can acquire that level of player for such a little return in the future (I will definitely be proven wrong sometime but I don’t think it will be any sort of common occurrence)
I don't think there is a model for team building. When people reference the Suns "model" they likely mean:
1. Superstar
1 Star
1 not yet star
a bunch of depth in solid players.
As opposed to 2-3 superstars/stars.
Either way I think we devolved from the original point which was... you don't need 3 stars to win a title, title teams are built many different ways. If there is a requirement for a title team it isn't a big 3, it's more likely having a top 10 player in the league (Suns might not, but this year is weird and Paul has a case that this year he was top 10).
I looked up Chris Paul's career VORP numbers on Basketball-Reference.
Setting the obvious caveats with a "one-size" number, the guy has been a ten player every healthy year between 2007 and 2020. He was even a top ten guy in some seasons where he wasn't fully healthy (2013-2014, 2016-2017). He was #11 this past season.
Phoenix was able to score him at a discount because they believed in his 2019-2020 bounce back and discounted his seasons in Houston.
Setting the obvious caveats with a "one-size" number, the guy has been a ten player every healthy year between 2007 and 2020. He was even a top ten guy in some seasons where he wasn't fully healthy (2013-2014, 2016-2017). He was #11 this past season.
Phoenix was able to score him at a discount because they believed in his 2019-2020 bounce back and discounted his seasons in Houston.
Paul has always had tremendous advanced stats; and while each one of them has obvious flaws, the fact that he dominates in so many is pretty telling.
Even in less advanced ones, he'll end up, what, 3rd all time in assists? With a healthy shot at 2nd?
At this rate he will probably finish 2nd All-Time, although his health will always be a question mark even if he remains playing at a high level when fit.
Stockton's record is low-key unbreakable. Not only did he play for a million years but he also played in an era where the way they calculated the stat was incredibly generous. Stockton averaged at least 12 apg on 8 different occasions (including 3 seasons of 13 apg and 2 seasons of 14 apg) while Paul never did it once. And that was during an era where scoring and pacing was down, his per 100 stats are outrageous (averaging 19 assists per 100 possessions in some years).
Paul and Stockton are very similar players. Paul is better, he had a level of individual offensive skill that Stockton could never get too, but both guys are basically the only small guards to play at a high level after 35, and both were excellent defenders and world-class shit-stirrers that knew every little trick in the book.
Checking out the list, what's especially crazy is that Lebron will almost certainly finish top-5.
I mean, LeBron is going to play a million career minutes and has been pretty consistently good for 7-8 apg throughout his entire career. It's a weird list of people. Typically, small PGs have shorter careers than wings or big men, so as the primary ball-handlers that have historically led the league in apg (Isiah Thomas, Tiny Archibald, Bob Cousy, Kevin Johnson, etc.) have had shorter careers that prevent them from putting up incredible career numbers.
Unless Tatum emerges as a clear cut top 10 player or Jaylen becomes a top 15 player, the team needs a 3rd banana or really good role players from 3-5. Smart, Fournier and TL aren't getting it done and they are really good role players. An improvement on one of those 3 is basically a star (maybe not TL).
What's been most interesting to me is that they're doing it with so many young guys stepping up. Johnson, Bridges, Ayton, Payne, Booker all not afraid at all in their first time on the big stage.
Makes me more optimistic for the C's.
The enormous difference is that they are being led by a veteran who is still a Top 5-10 player in the league.
Lots of guards with one year remaining are in this range. Lamb, Hood, Satoransky, Wright, Ty Jones.
I mean as he continued to improve after covid he just kept getting better. He’s pretty clearly a top ten player now. And he’s still getting better. I remember getting grief a few years ago when I assured people he was going to eventually be a 24/8/4 player. He’s already better than I thought he was going to be. And getting better still. Relax, he makes building a team a lot easier. Especially now that they have the right vet to stabilize the clubhouse.
He's easily top 10 if you include defense.
His improvement is completely fluid. You have to constantly reaccess him since he keeps on leaping every 30-40 games.
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This is complete homer nonsense. You could argue it, but you find few people outside the New England area that would say "he is easily top 10".
well, I live in LA and
do you take defense into account?
then again there were nitwits around here that thought Kemba was the best Celtic when Danny signed him 2yrs ago because he made All-NBA
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ESPN and The Athletic both did NBA rankings and neither found Tatum in the top 10. The NBA just voted on all-NBA teams and he wasn't in the top 10 (though, he was fairly close). He was number 40 in RPM and 31 in Win Shares (52 in WS/48). You can argue he's improved post-COVID and should be there but to say "anyone who knows hoops can easily see it" is unsupportable. Whether or not he is in the top 10---and I can say there are not 10 guys I'd trade him for straight up given age, etc.---it is pretty clear that the case he is not in the top 10 right now is quite easy to support.
Sure, while he had covid. The later in the year you moved, and the further removed from the illness he got, the more dominant he became. I mean sure, if you expect him to fall victim to a pandemic every year, I can see why you’d be skeptical. But his late season explosion should have put an exclamation point on the player he’s becoming (that last being the key point here).
he got COVID, came back early and was using an inhaler. Plus he was stuck with a bunch of inept defenders around him last season
When they tip it off next season he'll easily be a top 10 player
you do realize the voting for the All NBA team was flawed, right?
As I hope you would have realized given past exchanges, I have a lot better track record than you on the NBA and the Celtics. So you can rest assured I know that, figured it in, and still landed on a very different conclusion than you did.
So you have to reassess him every 30-40 games, but only if you ignore the games that don't fit the argument you're trying to make?
And almost all the defenders around him this season were the same defenders around him last season. If he can combine being the solo #1 guy that he was in the 20-21 offense with 19-20 defense then yes he's easily a top 10 player, he hasn't done that yet.
Checked your signature recently? Or your point of view on the Celtics wing depth?
I enjoy your posts but your excitement regularly runs ahead of good analysis.
And honestly I have a better track record than 99% of you guys here. So if you want to turn this into a measuring contest, mine’s longer.
I admit that I’m a complete psycho in the amount of time I spend watching basketball tape on video sites. But Tatum’s season had three distinct phases, the beginning of the season where he was great, the covid/post covid stretch where he was clearly fighting fatigue and respiratory issues, and then the final healthy stretch where he bent the league over a hobby horse.
As much as I hate to say it, that stretch is a lot closer to who Tatum’s becoming than the ill health portion of the season. Have a look at his physique these days, his upper body is pretty jacked, he absorbs contact better and is therefore better able to draw fouls. He also sees that as one of the last holes in his game, and is hellbent on closing it. Given his gymrat resume, bet on him going from roughly 5 FTA/g to the 7-9 range over the the next two seasons.
He’s morphing into an offensive gravity well before your eyes, just appreciate it. Because the Celtics do, it’s a lot easier to be the second banana when teams have to throw the kitchen sink at the first banana. (The Demon Kyzuzu understands this, let me tell you.)
OMG Grant Williams? He showed up fat & out of shape. I liked him to start the year but he was terrible this season, not much to argue there. So that's fair. Ding me one SoSH point
BUT Everyone on the planet knew they lacked wing depth last season after losing Hayward. Signing Rondae Hollis Jefferson or Trevor Ariza wasn't the answer IMO, which was your stance. Using the TPE to add a wing during the season was my stance... and Fournier was good when healthy.
The vast majority of the board said this the beginning of last season. When you actually list the players, you'll see that Jayson Tatum is a debatable top 10 player at best.
That was not your position. And I certainly never advocated the plan you suggest (though I agree those guys would have helped!) Please try to be more honest about all this.
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yea I've been riding the Tatum top 10 since the beginning of last season. I see Tatum as an elite WING defender, top 5-10, so that combined with his offense makes him easily a top 10 player. IMO
Most of the Top 20-30 player lists essentially go by offense, which doesn't really do it for me. But this stuff is incredibly subjective and I'm fine being overly bullish on Tatum
BUT I have to laugh at being called a "Celtic homer" especially when it comes to Kemba Walker, Tristan Thompson's lane clogging effects, Jaylen's help defense, chunky Smart, and the 100's of other things I nitpick about Brad's coaching and Danny's recent FA signings.
I doubt anyone has him outside the top 15 so having him in the top 10 isn't really a homer stance. Having him in the top 5 would be a homer stance.
Bill Simmons and Ryen Russillo did a top 30 player list recently. Both of those guys know basketball and probably lean more towards Boston homerism than your typical national analyst. Neither of them had Tatum Top 10.
I think there’s an argument to be made Tatums a top 10 player. But to say hes pretty clearly or easily top 10 is crazy (and yes I think most lists that are made include defense)
I think there’s an argument to be made Tatums a top 10 player. But to say hes pretty clearly or easily top 10 is crazy (and yes I think most lists that are made include defense)