He looked not exactly skinny under that white T shirt yesterday. He's got broad shoulders too. I mean, KD never bulked up and look at his career.
Jaylen or Tatum?
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Tatum vs. Mitchell is a tough one, but right now I'd lean towards Mitchell. His role is more demanding on the Jazz, and he's doing it at an efficient level. Very impressed with his motor and athleticism as well. Tatum needs to develop physically more. Will be fun to watch these two.
KD never got buff or anything, but he has definitely bulked up (gradually) over the years. Tatum's starting from a substantially less skinny baseline than KD.
Skinny probably isn’t the right term. I’d say he looks lean because he doesn’t have some muscle definition. But compared to a guy like Jaylen, Tatum has some room for growth. Going to be a machine once the strength and conditioning team gets him on a couple summer plans.
I don't think it is. Mitchell is essentially a Wade clone, right down to the streaky shooting. Those guys actually have to be offensive centerpieces because they're not really capable of being secondary scorers. And in the world of primary scorers, Russ Westbrook he ain't.
So if the choice is between a crack whore's Westbrook or a poor man's Durantula, I'm taking the latter twelve times out of ten. Especially given that Tatum rates out as the much better defensive player.
The size difference between the two is a real shortcoming for Mitchell. Despite the arm length, at barely 6'3" 210, unless he's willing to kill himself a la Marcus Smart, there's only so much Mitchell can do defensively against guys standing over 6'6" (and it's a lot easier to go full frontal Marcus when the team doesn't need you offensively).
Now, Mitchell had a better offensive regular season, but his efficiency nosedived in the playoffs (as it does for those sorts of guys). Tatum's did not, even as his offensive role in Boston grew with the postseason.
This one is tougher, but probably Simmons due to the size/upside factor. Simmons has the size/athleticism combination that should allow him to be ideal for the switch all the time defense. And his ability to run an offense is a big plus if he can at least get his game out to the 18'-20' range.
I think part of the problem is that even after firing Hinkie the Sixers stayed on process, and kept all their young guys playing in an inexperienced clubhouse. So there's a headcase factor there.
Mitchell had the advantage of stepping on to a veteran team that could help him maximize his potential. I've been saying this for fifteen years now, back to the days when I said that the best thing the Cavs ever did for LeBron was clearing the talented headcases out and giving him a veteran clubhouse. I think this was a huge factor in Jaylen Brown's development, as well. There were guys here to teach him what it took to succeed at this level and he had to earn every minute of playing time.
So this one is closer, but Simmons has a lot more upside, and I would probably gamble on it.
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No, because you'd rather build around a 6'3" guy that has to be the center of the offense rather than the 6'8" one that can be an effective scorer both on and off the ball while being better defensively to boot.
I'll have to look at Tatum a little more closely tomorrow night. Actually, have Game 1 on the DVR and this is an excuse to watch it again! At least fast forward through some parts and not others. Lebron's 7 turnovers? He must be the #1 all time spot picker (he picks his spots).
KD has very skinny shoulders, and doesn't naturally have much upper body strength (couldn't bench 185 once at the combine). Tatum is much much broader-shouldered, and seems to not have had much trouble adding weight over the course of the season. Give him a summer or two in the Ojeleye Factory, and he'll be a beast.
I mostly agree, but I think Tatum also has a ton of upside in two specific areas. If Tatum can add a reliable off the dribble 3, he becomes basically unguardable. We've seen glimpses of it, and I'm guessing he and Hanlen are very aware of how potent that would be. The other area Tatum can improve vastly in is playmaking, which he's been showing more and more of during the playoffs.
Now that I'm writing it out, I'm not sure I agree that Simmons has more upside. He actually might be more fully developed, in the sense that his passing is already incredible, and he's shown a lot on defense. The most likely path for Simmons' jumper is something like what Giannis has done, and that still didn't make the Celtics respect Giannis at all.
It's really, really close, and there's probably some recency bias given how bad Simmons looked at times in round 2, but I'd take Tatum in the modern NBA, just because elite 3-point shooting with the ability to get to the rack at will gets you so far, and he has a realistic chance to become that guy.
EDIT: I'm not saying that Tatum will be able to add all this, more that if we look back in a year and it's now obviously Tatum over Simmons, those skills will likely be the reason why.
You need to reread his post. He was talking about Donovan Mitchell vs Ben Simmons.
Mitchell may be better right now, but Tatum is likely to surpass him as he matures.
I was writing about Simmons v. Mitchell. Simmons probably has more upside than Tatum, but if I had to bet on which one got the most out of their talent, it'd be on Tatum. And Jay Tay has so much talent, that it isn't a stretch to think that he has more impact during his career than Simmons will in his.
When Tatum was asked to shoulder more of the load this year (for instance, in the postseason), here are his per/36 numbers, compared to Mitchell's during the regular season:
Points/36:
Tatum: 18.9
Mitchell: 22.1
Reb/36:
Tatum: 4.7
Mitchell: 4.0
Assts/36
Tatum: 3.2
Mitchell: 4.0
Usage:
Tatum: 23.9
Mitchell: 29.1
Shooting:
Tatum: .464/.320/.841 eFG: .508 TS: .572
Mitchell: .437/.340/.805 eFG: .506 TS: .541
Tatum's postseason has been just about as good as Mitchell's regular season.
Not illogical IMO. People are drawn to unique names more than common ones. If we had a player named Dikembe Smith, I expect we'd refer to him as "Dikembe".
And if they are both uncommon, we go with the one that is easier to spell. Hi Semi.
Tatum's one-legged fadeaway:
(Not being snarky, just interested in the process of formalizing how we refer to athletes)
I wonder if people are more informal with athletes on the home team?
Antetokounmpo says hello.
(Not being snarky, just interested in the process of formalizing how we refer to athletes)
I wonder if people are more informal with athletes on the home team?
They're both wings drafted at #3, and SoSH hated them both (I'm overgeneralizing) for very different reasons.
Jaylen was a jump-out-of-the-gym athlete who had a high upside, but a high bust potential as well. A guy who hadn't put it all together yet.
Tatum was polished and had a high floor, but was a mediocre athlete. He had a "old man" game.
Impressive that Danny could hit on both, given that he must have looked at them so differently.
Jaylen was a jump-out-of-the-gym athlete who had a high upside, but a high bust potential as well. A guy who hadn't put it all together yet.
Tatum was polished and had a high floor, but was a mediocre athlete. He had a "old man" game.
Impressive that Danny could hit on both, given that he must have looked at them so differently.
Seriously? I don't hear him referred to as Antetokounmpo* very often. I always hear/see Giannis.
Antetokounmpo has shown up on this forum 98 times since 2013. Giannis has shown up 200 times since November of last year. I'm guessing there are some different spelling versions of Antetokounmpo that didn't show up in search, but that still doesn't make up the difference.
*I do enjoy pronouncing his last name.
I'm pretty sure he was joking and it came across weird. It's pretty much always Giannis or Greek Freak.
Man, that 2000 draft SUCKED!
The only valuable players picked were Turkey Glue, Michael Redd, Jamal Crawford, Mike Miller, Kenyon Martin and maybe Quinton Richardson and Magloire and Morris Peterson?
Simmons has several elite skills, but his shooting - especially if he says he's not going to fix his mechanics - will always be awful, so that's one HUGE area where he will always be woefully deficient.
Tatum has a far more complete game and has a higher ceiling. More experience and adding a better left hand finish will help. But he's going to be an absolute star.
Hmmm, I've always thought it was Antetokounmpo or the Greek Freak, but I guess I'm the outlier.
With the benefit of hindsight, is amazing how just completely flat wrong both of those assesments were.
Tatum is also two years younger, which means you get him two extra years in his twenties. That puts him over the top for me.
Some of us loved the Tatum selection and pushed back on the mediocre athlete thing. He’s so smooth that you can miss the quickness.
Yeah, Jayson’s athleticism in a couple of years, as he fills out, is going to make him into a beast. Or even more of one. Combine that with getting his age 20 and 21 seasons, meaning that he should be hitting beast mode in his age 22 one, are pretty decisive. Especially given the much broader offensive game.
I love watching guards like Westbrook, Oladipo, and Mitchell play, I just have my doubts about winning a title with a guy like that.
Here's a tweet from Deam Demakis:
"Morey hauled more w/ picks 37 + 43 than Ainge did with 3, 16, 23, 31, and 35."*
* (He then tweeted, "This is a bit hyperbolic, but take Jaylen Brown out of the mix and Morey's haul destroys Boston's")
I mean, the late 90s wasn't that long ago.
Or maybe it was. In any event a significant number of the membership today is still from those very very very early days.
There may even have been some Jerome Moiso talk back then. People weren't terribly happy about the pick.
"Pics or it didn't happen"
"This ^&^#@$ isn't going to suck itself."
"Brackets?"
This place was the wild west many years ago.
There were probably 2 dozens regulars here in the late 90s ezboard era, and half of those aren't here any more. I don't recall but I don't think there was much, if any Celtics talk back then.
Late 90s I don't recall, but I remember 9/11 on SoSH, so not long after that.
It's just impossible that a significant portion of SoSH today is from the 90's. Literally impossible.
I date back to the ezboard days and there was some Celtics talk in that far off era.
You have it backwards, he's saying that a significant portion of the people that started here way back in medieval times are still around.
I think he's going to have to delete more than one. For example: "Jaylen Brown is just bad" (posted May 17, 2017).
(Note that in this twitter thread, Dean says that he had JB "like 5th" when he really had him 11th.)
