Jayson Tatum - Contract extension - Mission Accomplished (now with more $$$$$)
- Thread starter NomarsFool
- Start date
This is a big deal for players lol
View: https://twitter.com/NBA2K/status/1810997548649423274
View: https://twitter.com/CTabatabaie/status/1810996136875860419
View: https://twitter.com/NBA2K/status/1810997548649423274
View: https://twitter.com/CTabatabaie/status/1810996136875860419
Last edited:
He said he'd be traded to the Lakers---that's an absolute horror story!
But ok, other than that, it's awfully awesome.
But ok, other than that, it's awfully awesome.
No wonder Tatum was expecting and hoping for the Suns. Ryan McDonough smugly encouraging Josh Jackson to avoid the Celtics instead of Tatum might have averted Jayson becoming a Sun, Laker, and prophet.
This might have been around the time of those Steve Nash/Mike D'Antoni 7 seconds or less Suns teams that were a blast to watch, I wouldn't be surprised if that was something that caught his attention at that age.
Tatum would have been in 4th grade during the 2007-8 season. That was the end of the "7 seconds" run, with Shawn Marion being traded midseason for Shaq, and D'Antoni leaving for New York after the playoffs
Of course, if Tatum was going to be inspired by the great teams of that time, the Eastern Conference champ that year was also pretty good...
Trivia time: without looking it up, which former Celtics was used as salary filler and traded to Miami with Shawn Marion to match salaries for Shaq?
I don't think Boston had any intentions of drafting Jackson #1 (which was what Ainge said, that the guy they wanted would last until #3). I'm fairly certain that Ainge's interest in JJ was as a fallback plan in case the Lakers or Sixers came to their senses.
But then he just wouldn't have done the #1 for #3 pick trade, right? If you're going to have pick #1, you gotta get your guy.
I was thinking more, what if McDonaugh had fixated on Tatum instead of Jackson and convinced Tatum to not show?
I think Tatum was going to not even go either, till Coach K convinced him to work out for Boston.
Right, but his exact quote at the time was "We believe the guy we want will still be there at three." So my assumption is that his interest in Jackson was due to his lack of interest in either guard.
All good guesses
Ding ding ding, we have a winner!
The whole "Ainge wouldnt have traded then" thing always bothers me.
Scenerio 1: What Happened Happens......But....
Scenerio 2: Lets say I am Philly. And I want Tatum. I know Boston wants him to. So I tell them I want Fultz. Boston Trades....Philly ends up with Tatum.
Scenerio 3: I Tell Boston I want Fultz.....And I take Ball. Lakers are now pissed and Take JT. We get stuck with Fultz.
Scenerio 4: Boston Holds the pick to ensure that there are no Shenanigans. They talk to Philly who says "Draft Fultz and we will trade the #3+ for Fultz." Boston takes Fultz #1 over all and Philly then says....."Yea.....no....." Lakers take Ball/JT, Philly Takes Ball/JT
I just dont see how Ainge could have possibly been 100% or even 90% confident that JT would be there at 3. Sure you can say that Philly and the Lakers where projecting who they were taking, telling any media member who would listen....but that locks them into doing absolutely nothing. "Yea we changed our mind....when a Player like JT is available you do what you can to ensure he is available." "After some last minute discussion we decided to go in a different direction..."
I mean other then pissing Ainge/celtics off (which is probably a feature not a bug in Philly and LAs eyes) I still cant believe he made the trade and got away with it.
Was Fultz really considered that much of a Slam dunk BPA?
Scenerio 1: What Happened Happens......But....
Scenerio 2: Lets say I am Philly. And I want Tatum. I know Boston wants him to. So I tell them I want Fultz. Boston Trades....Philly ends up with Tatum.
Scenerio 3: I Tell Boston I want Fultz.....And I take Ball. Lakers are now pissed and Take JT. We get stuck with Fultz.
Scenerio 4: Boston Holds the pick to ensure that there are no Shenanigans. They talk to Philly who says "Draft Fultz and we will trade the #3+ for Fultz." Boston takes Fultz #1 over all and Philly then says....."Yea.....no....." Lakers take Ball/JT, Philly Takes Ball/JT
I just dont see how Ainge could have possibly been 100% or even 90% confident that JT would be there at 3. Sure you can say that Philly and the Lakers where projecting who they were taking, telling any media member who would listen....but that locks them into doing absolutely nothing. "Yea we changed our mind....when a Player like JT is available you do what you can to ensure he is available." "After some last minute discussion we decided to go in a different direction..."
I mean other then pissing Ainge/celtics off (which is probably a feature not a bug in Philly and LAs eyes) I still cant believe he made the trade and got away with it.
Was Fultz really considered that much of a Slam dunk BPA?
My personal belief is that Ainge may felt like Tatum was a better player than Fultz, but I also believe that he must have thought that Fultz was still a good pick at #3. To put it another way, if Philly did take JT, I think Ainge would have been perfectly happy taking Fultz at #3 and felt like he got a really good player. Knowing then what we know now, trading #1 would have been much, much too risky given the eventual gap between Tatum and Fultz.
Yeah no matter what I hear, I'll always be convinced that Ainge had Tatum and Fultz graded pretty closely, to the point where he would've been fine with either. There's even an argument that he thought Fultz was the better player, but Tatum plus the future 1st had more value than Fultz alone.
It’s all revisionist history at this point, but this quote from Weitzman’s book “Tanking to the Top” seems pretty clear Ainge had a strong preference for Tatum over Fultz:
Considering how quickly Danny moved the pick after that workout, I’m pretty confident Danny had no worries about being the guy who passed on Fultz, and the extra pick for the trade down was just gravy. He probably got comfortable Philly was only trading up for Fultz and the Lakers were taking Lonzo, so the risk of missing Tatum was small enough.
Yeah there were rumors that Ainge had people calling old coaches, school principals, etc. and gathering recon on all of the top guys and that the feedback on Fultz was lukewarm. Those rumors were out long before anyone knew who Fultz and Tatum were going to turn into. I read Fultz entirely wrong and was ripshit that we made the trade at the time, and I remember these rumors after the fact being somewhat soothing to read. It's not revisionist history. There were some questions around the draft about Fultz. They were unsourced, rumors, heresay, etc. It wasn't widespread and out there bigly, but it's not like people are retconning this entirely.
At the time of the draft there was zero buzz regarding Tatum possibly going #1. Fultz going #1 and then Ball being the guy the Lakers wanted at 2 were the only reports out there. There were a ton of people (maybe more than half the reports?) thinking Jackson was probably the Celtics’ target at 3.
In this forum, we were confident that Tatum was the target at 3 but that wasn’t a slam dunk in the national media. I remember having a conversation with a well informed NBA fan (but not a Celtics fan) who looked at me like I was crazy when I assured him Tatum would be the pick over Jackson.
In this forum, we were confident that Tatum was the target at 3 but that wasn’t a slam dunk in the national media. I remember having a conversation with a well informed NBA fan (but not a Celtics fan) who looked at me like I was crazy when I assured him Tatum would be the pick over Jackson.
Nobody's retconning that Ainge had gotten some special and correct insight about the two of them.
Baka is wondering how Ainge could possibly have been so confident that Philly and LA were lacking that same insight that he would risk being wrong about their intentions, not his own evaluation.
I think the answer is probably that they had as many tells as a drunk newbie at a poker table, and so he just told Philly he had Fultz and Tatum rated equally, and was happy to take an asset to let them (Philly) pick between them.
Baka is wondering how Ainge could possibly have been so confident that Philly and LA were lacking that same insight that he would risk being wrong about their intentions, not his own evaluation.
I think the answer is probably that they had as many tells as a drunk newbie at a poker table, and so he just told Philly he had Fultz and Tatum rated equally, and was happy to take an asset to let them (Philly) pick between them.
So, maybe Ainge would have taken Jackson at #3 if Philly had taken Tatum? Either way, I think Ainge must have felt confident that there was going to be a good player available at #3, no matter what happened. If he didn't, he must really like to gamble because to trade the #1 and get stuck with a player at #3 you don't think is good is a pretty bad outcome.
Yeah he was probably interested in Jackson just in case, that's the theory. But I also think that he had pretty solid intel that the top 2 were locked in and was seeing very small error bars.
I wonder what the dynamic is when teams are discussing a trade like 1 for 3? Does Ainge ask who Philly will take with the pick before agreeing? Of course Philly doesn’t have to tell the truth but it’s probably not good to develop a reputation for lying in a situation like that either.
edit: I guess what I’m asking is if there’s a chance that Philly tells Ainge who they are targeting during trade discussions.
edit: I guess what I’m asking is if there’s a chance that Philly tells Ainge who they are targeting during trade discussions.
agreed. My view at time—and pretty sure there are posts on this back then—is Ainge had to have concluded Tatum was the guy (note—I am not enough of a scout to know…just saying, and said, Ainge had to feel that way)
there’s quotes to that effect (nighthob referenced them) and the deal makes no sense unless you’re confident you’re getting the best guy—both the scouting assessment of Tatum and the assessment of who Philly and Lakers will take.
was it background on Fultz? Brain doctor? Something else. Dunno. But after the in person visit feels like Danny knew he wanted Tatum and after that it was just arbitraging value
Ainge gambled but had to feel he had great odds. And as I recall at the time—whatever the historical performance of 1st vs 3rd picks, the scouting assessment of the individual is the key
In the run up to the draft I had Tatum and Fultz as 1a and 1b. Both had the rep as gym rats (which is a huge plus for me in my evaluations), although it was more apparent in Tatum’s case (Hanlen’s influence). But on draft night I got off the Fultz train, all that focus on product placement rubbed me the wrong way.
The story also goes that Ainge wanted Durant over Oden, had the Celtics won that lottery. He was in the vast minority.
The day after Fultz worked out for Boston when we still had the #1 pick, he scheduled another workout for the following day with another team (Philly I beleive). I recall posting about it at the time that this was not typical of what a consensus #1 pick would do and that both parties knew right then that Fultz would not be a Celtic.
He also put on a ton of weight working with his non-basketball specific trainer which probably didn’t do his shoulder or his shot much good.
There will be an interesting article (or chapter in a book) written at some point when all the parties have retired, but I just cannot believe that if Ainge truly graded Tatum as the best player in the class (by any discernible margin) that he would have risked losing him over a future 1st.
Unless he knew that there was zero risk. LA was never not taking Ball so it all came down to Philly wanting Fultz. I’m sure all these GMs have people within other organizations that they trust for into.
Yeah I wonder about this too. Of course professional athletes are so self-confident, DA could have just been supremely confident in his evaluation.
Fultz did not have a great workout for the Cs. I don't believe that DA would have picked Fultz at all. IIRC, that's when DA said that Markelle could "really score against a chair" and DA took him to Chipotle for dinner. Thought it was kind of weird to take the potential #1 to Chipotle (although that was probably both DA's and Fultz's style).
Also, this Reddit thread - Fultz's fall 2017 shooting issues didn't come out of nowhere. There were clear warning signs before the 2017 NBA draft. : r/nba (reddit.com) - says that Fultz did not shoot well in the BOS workouts and some BOS folks was worried about his mechanics. No idea if it's true but it would be interesting if BOS saw it and PHI did not.