There really aren't any reasonable "count the winz" based arguments that put Luka over Tatum. Tatum has just had far, far more success with all types of teams and roles than Luka has.
I don’t think it’s a “count the winz” contest but rather the perception of who you want to have with the ball in his hands for late and close situations.
That's fair. There are a couple valid observations that imo basketball analysis has gone way too far with:
I don’t disagree. That’s why I continue to emphasize the word “perception.” Fair or not, the Celtics generally and Tatum specifically are perceived to be soft and coming up short in key moments. Any “Tatum or alternate” debate is going to introduce a candidate who is reputed to be a more demonstrative alpha (Edwards) or a better closer (Doncic) until Tatum changes the narrative.
I'm more bearish on Wembanyama's health prospects than others, and maybe more so than is merited. My thing is, I'd like to see someone of his height enjoy a productive 10+ career before I (hypothetically) trade a top-6 perennially-healthy talent like Tatum for him. On your side of the argument is: Kareem, who enjoyed a long healthy career, and all the advances in medical understanding and certain specificities of Wemby's situation that bode well (e.g. that his build seems better suited to withstand NBA activities than previous giants, etc). And maybe in a decade, my skepticism will seem quaint while guys like Wemby and Chet are in the midst of long fruitful careers. But so far, the health record of really big guys with really big expectations has been spotty (Walton *, Yao, Sampson, Embiid). The "big expectations" part is important, too, because the physical strain on someone like Wemby is entirely different than on role players like Shawn Bradley or Mark Eaton, who just stood around and blocked shots, weren't expected to dribble up the court, change directions, etc etc, so I don't think these guys are useful data points.
I feel it's a bit more nuanced . When I watch Luka racking up triple-doubles, bending defenses, and scoring at huge volume with high efficiency, I get why pundits have him higher than Tatum, even if I'm skeptical. It's also worth noting that DARKO has them very close.
One thing I’ve noticed over the past few weeks is that, with the playoffs looming, this Celtics team has basically not been talked about other than to say they need to win it all. All saying that, yeah they’ve been great, but can this team go and win it all after failing so often.. a team with Tatum that has gone to at least the ECF 4 of the last 6 years. I haven’t noticed other teams or players getting talked about as that being a failure or weakness in the same way.
Luka has missed the playoffs twice in his five years, not once. 40% of his career to date, watching. Another 40%, quick exit. He has made one playoff run in five years. You are correct that this year should be a measuring stick for him.
Even the WCF run, Luka missed the first three games of the 1st round and got picked up by Jalen Brunson scoring 72 in two wins, so DAL was up 2-1 when Luka came back.
I think listing more than one, if not all is a helpful start. While everyone may have their all in one they like best, when all of them say a certain thing, that only strengthens the case. So if DARKO shows that Tatum is far superior to Luka, but all the others show the opposite or at least a similar player, then maybe we should be questioning the outlier more than we do.
With Luka and Tatum, the numbers don’t diverge that much, and the divergence is interesting only in why these metrics are different.
Yeah agreed. I wrote that in a follow-up post that I try to point to two or three of the better ones to paint a picture. I think that we're all in agreement on this. Hoop metrics have come miles in just the last few years, which is awesome, but you need to bring multiple data sets into it.
Great post. And great assessment.
Thank you. One of the things that has bugged me this post season is the lionization of Embiid because he has averaged more then a point per minute. This puts him with the likes of perennial NBA “champion” Wilt Chamberlain. It doesn’t take much thought to realize that you get to averaging a point a minute by taking as many shots as you can while you are on the floor (ie being a ball hog). Meanwhile, serious NBA podcasters are going “Tsk Tsk” about Tatum’s chances of 1st team NBA because his counting stats are down.
Love the post.
Don't forget that you also end up getting superstars like Tom Cruise and George Clooney to sign on as well.
I do think this speaks to Tatum prioritizing getting a championship this season over individual accolades. I believe he has said he would love to win an MVP however I think all of the top 6 are well aligned that an NBA championship is what all of them are focused on.
Wilt's a great example of how much people loved pointz then and still do. And why team ball beats pointz.
When you score as efficiently as Embiid did this year of course you want him hogging the ball. The dude was a goddamn beast this year when he was healthy. They were 31-8 with Embiid this year. A better winning percentage than the 1st place, best record in the league Boston Celtics
I think a lot of pundits, and certainly social media accounts, are a lot more impressed with a player who has a mediocre supporting cast and winning 50 games, like Brunson, than a player with a great supporting cast and winning 64 games. It's more interesting of a narrative to talk about one guy dragging people to success, as opposed to someone playing perfectly in a well-oiled machine.
Both the stats and the record were influenced by when and where Embiid (and the Sixers) chose to play him. Remember when the entire NBA public was blaming him for ducking Jokic and the Nuggets in Denver? That didn't come out of nowhere. 24 of his 39 games this season were at home. Before his season altering knee injury, he sat out games against Minnesota, New Orleans, Boston, Miami, Orlando and Sacramento (and of course, Denver). No dodging anyone in the playoffs, so we'll see how that goes.
And even Jordan noticeably decreased his scoring during the title runs compared to previous years. He just scored so much that he continued to win scoring titles despite shooting less.
I'd say the Embiid 76ers are slightly better than those juggernaut Bucks we were warned about to start the season
Embiid was REALLY good when healthy, and so were the Sixers. But people are memory-holing a bit how cupcakey their early schedule was.
And their team is in 7th place in the East and has to navigate the play-in. Do you think that they may have been in a better position if they hadn’t built their offense around maximizing their beast? Are you going to base your season on Embiid being healthy?
They have no other option do they? The rest of their team is not talented enough to win games without Embiid. The scheme is likely irrelevant.
Think Embiid was above Giannis before he got hurt.
Agree that Embiid is an incredible basketball player, really amazing to watch. He's doing stuff that isn't that far off from Wemby but he's doing it at 80 pounds (or so) heavier. He's also been let down by his coaches, his teammates, and (most of all) management.
Everyone agrees Embiid is an incredible player... when healthy.
Tatum gets more criticism for having made 4 ECFs and a Finals than Embiid does for having never played a minute in any of those. And Embiid has been on some very talented teams.
The baffling part is that his playoff resume isn't like Chris Paul's (prior to going to Houston). Like Embiid, CP3 was a top 5 player who for whatever reason couldn't get out of the 2nd round. Unlike Embiid, CP3's personal playoff stats were similar (or better) to his regular season totals: 21.4/4.7/9.4 with 2.2 steals and a .583 TS% in the playoffs, vs 19.1/4.3/10.2 with 2.3 steals and a .584 TS% in the regular season over that same period (2008-2017). Chris Paul got quite a bit of shit for never making it to the final four (as the main guy in NO and LA) despite being considered the best point guard in the league, at least until Steph Curry started winning MVPs, even though his personal performance was still quite good. Embiid is demonstrably worse in the playoffs, but there's always an excuse (injuries), or it's always someone else's fault (Simmons, Harden, Doc). Now that Embiid has surpassed Paul's regular season achievements with an MVP, it's even more odd. If Embiid continues to play and the Sixers lose in the east to anyone other than Boston, he should be killed by the media. Will he? Probably not.
First thing's first did their weekly player rankings, and this was the "playoff" version:
Are you kidding? We have an entire chapter of the Lebron Haters Club (on-court conduct only) in this forum. In Steve Nash's heyday the jokes about his defense flew far and wide. About the only players today who inspire unanimous admiration here are Jokic and Curry.
You know….there is a difference between complaining about players and complaining about how the media treats the players.
I would argue that of course it is fair. The Celtics came up short in each of the past 2 years and Tatum's play was erratic and sometimes bad in key moments.
I disagree almost completely with this. Yes, Tatum might be getting more in-season credit if he were putting up better stats (not that there is anything wrong with the stats he is putting up), but at the end of the day the most helpful thing he can do in pursuit of winning an MVP someday is win a title. Or have another huge step up in his overall level of play, but I'm skeptical that he has another leap like that in him).
Embiid is an excellent case study, because he is somewhat similar to Tatum in being an elite player who has tended to underperform in terms of team playoff success. Only somewhat similar, because Embiid is actually a more dominant regular season player than Tatum yet far less of a playoff difference maker. Tatum reached the ECF 4 times in his first 6 years, on a range of different teams with Brown and (until this year) Smart the only constants. Joel Embiid, regular season MVP candidate that he is, has never taken his team to the ECF let along won an ECF. I think Embiid is a guy who, for all his talent, can be stopped when it counts. Tatum has one final hurdle he needs to figure out how to clear; Embiid can't even get that far.
Look at the history of the NBA and players like GA (26), Jordan (28), LeBron (27), etc.. they didn’t win a championship this young or were this age.. and they definitely didn’t get as far into the playoffs as Tatum and Brown haveas consistently as they have.
Yes, I think the right way to look at it is:
I've never (intentionally) bookmarked a post in my 20ish years on this site. Until now. This is probably the most succinct take on all this, and I plan on revisiting it often and sending it to people as necessary should things get dire the next couple months. That said, here's to hoping for a 16 game win streak!
I should also give a huge disclaimer: Tatum absolutely could have become one of those Young Winners. If he had been the 3rd-best player against GSW, they probably have a title now. He's not beyond criticism in any way, but winning titles young is hard, and lots of stuff goes wrong.
I am convinced that the 2024 version of Tatum schools Wiggins and wins that GSW series. And the 2024 Celtics would win that series in a straight sweep.
Yeah I mean that's exactly how I read your post anyway, but appreciate the disclaimer. One thing that really gets to me is when people take the stance about their player/team "___ player or ___ team isn't good or mentally tough enough to win." Especially prematurely. It's the easiest stance to take as a sports fan...because more often than not you are proven right, and you get to celebrate and say "see, I told you." But if you are proven wrong, and your guy/team wins you also get to celebrate! End mini rant.
Since it's impossible to say with 100% certainty this is true, Ill stop at 99%...
He is likely going to be first team all-NBA for the third straight year. How the hell is being rated one of the 5 best players in the league considered underrated?
NBC Sports Boston with a refresher on when superstars win their titles: https://www.nbcsportsboston.com/nba/boston-celtics/nba-history-jayson-tatum-champion-celtics-playoffs/604355/
I think this is a great observation. JT isn't a "unicorn" like LBJ or KD or Steph or even Kawhi to some extent. He's not the best passing wing but he's really good at it. He's not the best shooting wing, but he's really good at it. He's not the best defensive wing but he's really good at it.
With his FT% and ability to hit 3s at a respectable rate? I dunno, I think that makes him a new breed, at least efficiency-wise. You can't defend him the way you might once have defended Shaq.
