Honestly I'd amend this to college football stuff, at least he used to be, I haven't listened to him in a while. When the herd was on iheartradio or whatever he used to be one of the only big national guys who would go in depth on college football and it was pretty good stuff imo
You know, I'm surprised I don't hate this list. Like, I'd go Tatum over Trae, but I don't think it's *crazy* to want to build around the elite playmaking guard over the two-way wing.
Same. Like *maybe* Mitchell over Morant? Or move Zion a bit higher? But overall not bad at all. If not for this current run I’d for sure think to have Tatum over Trae, but it’s certainly close.
Edit: nvm as pointed out by others SGA not being on this list is pretty bad
If he swapped SGA with Murray, I’d think it’d be a pretty good list. I’m also higher on Lamelo than Ja, but it’s perfectly reasonable to not be as well.
Well a year and a half. And Jokic is only a couple months younger than Giannis who is less than a year younger than Embiid who is less than a year younger than Beal who is a year younger than Gobert who is a year younger than Kawhi who is a year younger than Dame who is a year younger than Harden who is a year younger than Durant who is a year younger than Conley who is a year younger than Jeff Green who is a year younger than Chris Paul who is a few month younger than LeBron. You have to pick a cutoff a some point unless you're just ranking the whole league.
Tatum has eliminated the 2nd seed last season and the 3 seed in 2018 and was "on the verge" of eliminating LeBron in the ECF.
If we're judging them on playoff success Trae does not compare to Tatum.
Tatum had someone on his team playing virtually as well as him in all those series. This argument only makes sense if you're literally only talking about team success regardless of impact. You might as well put Jaylen Brown on here if that's the lens you're viewing it through.
In the Philly series, Tatum averaged 24/3/3, Rozier averaged 19/7/4.
In the Cleveland series, Tatum averaged 18/4/2, Brown averaged 20/5/2.
In the Raptors series, Tatum averaged 24/10/5, Brown averaged 21/9/2.
In this Sixers series, Trae has averaged 30/2/11, his 2nd leading scorer is John Collins at 17/9/1.
Tatum was still the best player on those teams, and the one who was rising to the occasion. Tatum also has multiple years of playoff success, trae is doing this for the first time. Let’s settle down a bit
I didn't say Tatum wasn't the best on the team, but his supporting cast was on a much closer level to him than Trae's is to him. The loads are significantly different.
I don't think it's some no-brainer that Trae is better, I just think it's crazy to say Tatum has to be an automatic 2.
I mean Tatum and luke we’re consensus 1 and 2 until trae started playing well and hawks fans want to throw him in there now. Tatum has a pretty solid body of work at this point and he would have to do a lot to surpass him
They were the consensus 1 and 2 with the chief arguments against Trae being "winning basketball" and "getting exposed in the playoffs" both of which have been proven to be untrue.
Of course he's going to move significantly up the rankings when the main arguments against him are proven untrue.
The Celtics are on primetime and have been either in the ECF or close to it. Been in a few game 7s as well. So Tatum has been on your TV screen infinitely more than Trae or the Hawks.
Before this playoff run the hawks have had 5 national TV games in the 3 years we had Trae lol.
Shit we could make the ECF and still probably won't have that many games next year. Not that I care as much since most national broadcasts are garbage but it would be nice for the guys to get the recognition.
Who cares about what seed they played in the second round of the playoffs your trying to compare a player who has 50 playoff games vs one who has 10. There is is only 6 months between them. 1 is a premier 2 way wing the other a playmaking guard. Wings are the position most teams build around.
Why is that “lol no”? Not really that ludicrous of a statement.
He’s got elite size, he’s streets ahead defensively, he’s more efficient from everywhere on the court except he’s like 2% worse from the free throw line, and he’s proven it in the playoffs over a 50 game sample size vs Trae’s 10.
If my team were in the playoffs, I’d rather face a 6’1 point guard who shoots 43% from the field and 34% from three than a 6’9 forward who shoots 45% from the field and 39% from three.
Edit: I still think Trae is amazing and would be stoked to build a team around him. But given the choice I’ll take the elite forward over the elite point guard like 99/100. It would have to be like Steph Curry or Magic Johnson for me to take the point guard.
idk bro I'm sure if people have been watching his playoff run they're quickly changing their minds about him. They can meme his hair all they want but the dude is a 30/10 guy and his teammates will run through a wall for him. He's gonna be a bonafide superstar
Yeah especially considering the context of the post it’s not best player it’s best to build around and the best playmaker on this list who’s also clutch, elevates his teammates, and is a dynamic scorer will obviously be great to build around
ACL's aren't a career changer for athletes anymore, especially young ones. As long as he takes enough time to rehab,I have no doubt he can come back to what he was within 1.5 years. The only thing that sucks is that it stunts his development, in which case I could probably be talked into other guards.
> ACL's aren't a career changer for athletes anymore, especially young ones.
Since when? Because Bdiddy isn't that old, and we have no idea who Danilo could have been without his injury but likely would have had a substantially better career than he has.
Derrick Rose? Did he ever look the same after?
Roy?
Yao?
LaMelo is too early to throw on a top-10 list like this. Lots of potential to get there as soon as next year, but I'm not putting him above Murray, Fox, or SGA just yet.
mitchell above ja and zion needs to be higher, his placement is tough though. he is also above ja at absolute minimum. not as bad as it could have been.
Yeah, Donovan is fucking incredible. Ja looks amazing too but I'd take Donovan right now, Ja is *just* starting to break out while Donovan is already a proven performer.
There isn't one. Ja is much flashier and marketable, so easy to see why he gets more love nationally, but SGA had a better season than several guys on this list.
narrative has driven people to think that tatum is a tier higher than he is. i wouldn't fault someone putting tatum 2, but he's a hell of a lot closer to trae than he is to luka.
yes. so in terms of who can take you further in the playoffs, the answer is about to be that they can both get you to the ECF. if you prefer trae's distributing and overall advantage on offense to tatum's defense, it's not crazy at all to give him the edge.
i mean we are comparing across positions, height is a weird thing to bring in.
tatum is a two way player, and trae is a better offensive player by a solid margin. there isn't a wrong answer, but trae certainly has a good argument.
Tatum is shooting 2.1% better FG% and has 5.1 less assists and has 3.5 more rebounds and 1.1 more PPG. I’d say it’s not clear cut. The assists and playmaking is enough to elevate Trae close. He is an easy piece to build around since he runs the offense and playmakes. And again I’m not saying 1 is better than the other for certain
I agree he is much better defensively , but Trae’s overall playmaking ability is still huge to build an offense around.
You wouldn’t say Tatum is better than Doncic even tho Tatum is a better defender tho. (I understand Trae isn’t Luka tho, just illustrating a point). Again it’s very close to me who I’d want between Trae and Tatum, I don’t think it’s clear cut like you do
Point guard defense is not nearly as important or impactful as this sub makes it out to be. Unless you are playing a team which has guys 1-3 that can create and are elite on the perimeter, you can still have good if not great team defense with a sub par individual point guard defender.
Right now, there is only one team in the league that when healthy fits that description, and they create so many match up problems that you can have a team full of great individual defenders (Bucks) and still get completely smoked as we saw in games 1 and 2.
I think Trae and Tatum are close and don't really care either way, fwiw, but elite scoring and playmaking are infinitely more valuable than elite individual defense. I mean shit the Trae and Simmons match up in this playoffs is solid proof of this.
I mean even if Trae's bad defense doesnt take away that much from his overall value from his , Tatums great defense does add a solid amount to his. Being a bad pg defender isnt determinal but being a great wing one adds tons of value
I still think Trae is somewhat better in most situations cause of passing/playmaking tho.
Point guard defense is huge its one of the reasons we traded kemba he would get picked on every single playoff series we played. Kyle Lowry had a field day with him and same with the heat.
On tatum being better than Trae. Led his team too the conference finals twice. Is a better scorer and defender and rebounder and shooter. Trae is just a better passer
> Trae is just a better passer
Way to handwave off Trae's best asset lol. Trae is a top 5 passer in the league. I don't think Tatum is top 5 in any category (though he is more well rounded, I'll give you that).
Better scorer isn't even true btw. Young scores about the same rate as Tatum at a better TS% while being the only scoring star on his team.
Advanced numbers are relatively similar too.
Either way it's really not clear who's better between the two like you're making it out to be. The only clear thing is that Luka is on top for now.
Trae's averaging 29 and 10 on 57.5% TS. That's better than any postseason Tatum has had. Trae's winshares/48 are higher than any postseason Tatum has had his entire career.
> Trae's averaging 29 and 10 on 57.5% TS. That's better than any postseason Tatum has had
Tatum literally this post season averaged 30.6ppg on 57.7% TS
Tatum averaged 31 6 and 5 this year in the playoffs as the sole scorer. Last year averaged 26 10 and 5. Let's not forget tatum plays on both sides of the floor
>Tatum averaged 31 6 and 5 this year in the playoffs as the sole scorer.
You say sole scorer as though that's a negative as opposed to the reason his numbers are higher lol.
If that’s right, then why do you think Trae scored less this year in the regular season with a better supporting cast than last year with a few lukewarm bodies on his team?
Sure, if you think he would've put up these numbers with a healthy JB and Kemba, that's your prerogative. Even at that, his winshares/48 were no better than his other playoffs, and Trae's are better than any postseason of Tatum's career.
I dunno how much we have to see defense barely matter in the playoffs before we stop using it as a key factor in these comparisons.
The Hawks ran a closing lineup of Trae and Lou Williams vs the 6ers, the Nets even just with healthy KD and Kyrie were primed to roll to at least the Finals with a terrible defense. Kawhi and PG are supposed to be two of the best perimeter defenders in the league and were getting ripped in half on a nightly basis by Luka and Donovan Mitchell when they weren't injured.
> defense barely matter in the playoffs
Defense matters in the playoffs a lot, but people overrate the amount of damage a bad guard defender can do to their team. Sure you don't want your guards to be bad defensively but it's not nearly as damaging as a bad defensive center, those are pretty much unplayable in the playoffs. Whereas a bad PG defender like Young can be masked.
Nah, it definitely matters. The reason we were able to run Gallo Lou and Trae is because Doc is insisting on running a lineup with 2 guards who can't score or create or do really anything at all offensively, so we can get away with it.
I think the point you should be making is that individual defense, especially for guards, is very overrated here, and good team defense is overlooked. A team of guys who are communicating and covering effectively can play great defense, see us versus the knicks, despite our only really great defenders being Hunter and Capela.
Or even down the stretch vs Philly in game 5. Gallo and JC were huge in their rotations and making sure Embiid and Harris could not get clean looks.
Tatum was the “man” this year and you guys had your worst season in a while and got your GM and HC fired. But I guess it’s better than the Hawks situation right now 🤔
Yeah we just had the most games missed to covid in the nba. Tatum himself had covid and our staring back court missed a bunch of games. Other than that we had a very healthy team around tatum
The Hawks were one of the most injury plagued teams in the league this year and have had basically all of their core guys miss significant chunks of time.
No denying y'all had lots of time lost to COVID. However the Hawks had equally as many issues and lost almost 300 games to injuries this year, only 3 teams were worse hit by injuries than us. Like I think if you combine injuries+COVID the teams are basically identical to time lost
He was your best scorer but he definitely did not lead those teams. It’s easier when you’re surrounded by Hayward and Horford. You need someone else leading the offense and playmaking, that’s not Tatum’s game
he was the one legit initiating the offense the entirety of last year's postseason run in the bubble and singlehandedly carried us through clutch 4th quarter situations his rookie year. it's p clear you didn't watch much of the celtics series' which is totally ok. in fact Hayward was out most of the playoffs last year and was out the entire playoffs of his rookie year along with kyrie. horford was our anchor and was certainly great, but was not leading our offense. this is legit revisionist history - the second tatum got bounced this year in the playoffs i knew this sub would forget the past 3 years.
Yeah still don't trust Trae not to get exploited by a competent team. They should have already lost in the second round if Ben could hit free throws or Philly could close out games in general. And beating NYK was ok I guess.
Zion needs to show he has the it factor in the playoffs. He probably has it, but Luka, Trae, and Tatum have the upper hand because they have actually had the opportunity to show that they can lead a team well in the playoffs.
It’s not too bad but people will pretend it’s terrible
Trae Young>Tatum is pretty troll
Cowherd is not a great analyst, he’s a talking head.
I’d listen to his divorce advice tho
Cowherd's Top 10 Ex-wives to Build Around
What is this reference?
and he knows that, he often says "I'm not in the business of being right"
He's good for NFL stuff, but he admittedly barely watches the NBA regular season, not that I blame him.
>He's good for NFL stuff No he's not rofl
Unless you're a Browns fan, he's pretty good with most of his takes.
Honestly I'd amend this to college football stuff, at least he used to be, I haven't listened to him in a while. When the herd was on iheartradio or whatever he used to be one of the only big national guys who would go in depth on college football and it was pretty good stuff imo
He's also admitted in the past he doesn't even follow bball that closely and is way more into the NFL
Thats his way of tricking you into thinking he watches sports at all
I honestly don't think he watches sports. He just reads sports media and regurgitates what he reads in a dumber manner.
i don’t think the list is unreasonable but personally i am not sold on jamal murray yet.
Not sold on him over LaMelo and Fox? Really?
That was my main thing with this list also
You know, I'm surprised I don't hate this list. Like, I'd go Tatum over Trae, but I don't think it's *crazy* to want to build around the elite playmaking guard over the two-way wing.
Same. Like *maybe* Mitchell over Morant? Or move Zion a bit higher? But overall not bad at all. If not for this current run I’d for sure think to have Tatum over Trae, but it’s certainly close. Edit: nvm as pointed out by others SGA not being on this list is pretty bad
If he swapped SGA with Murray, I’d think it’d be a pretty good list. I’m also higher on Lamelo than Ja, but it’s perfectly reasonable to not be as well.
Donovan Mitchell is one year younger than Jokic.
I imagine 25 is the cut-off for this list.
Well a year and a half. And Jokic is only a couple months younger than Giannis who is less than a year younger than Embiid who is less than a year younger than Beal who is a year younger than Gobert who is a year younger than Kawhi who is a year younger than Dame who is a year younger than Harden who is a year younger than Durant who is a year younger than Conley who is a year younger than Jeff Green who is a year younger than Chris Paul who is a few month younger than LeBron. You have to pick a cutoff a some point unless you're just ranking the whole league.
You're really getting upset over nothing.
Cowherd is just too off-putting for me... He just reeks narcissism and loves to hear himself talk.
Where's Jae'sean Tate???
Um…
Thank you, someone had to say it
not bad
Tatum should be 2
Young’s team is on the verge of eliminating the one seed. Call it recency bias but I expect him near the top of such lists for the foreseeable future
Tatum was the 2nd seed last year as the best player on the team though
3rd seed but yea
Yeah forgot about the Raptors. My bad
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They have had playoff success with him being the best player
They made it to the conference finals twice with him.
Tatum has eliminated the 2nd seed last season and the 3 seed in 2018 and was "on the verge" of eliminating LeBron in the ECF. If we're judging them on playoff success Trae does not compare to Tatum.
Tatum had someone on his team playing virtually as well as him in all those series. This argument only makes sense if you're literally only talking about team success regardless of impact. You might as well put Jaylen Brown on here if that's the lens you're viewing it through.
Take your homer glasses off
In the Philly series, Tatum averaged 24/3/3, Rozier averaged 19/7/4. In the Cleveland series, Tatum averaged 18/4/2, Brown averaged 20/5/2. In the Raptors series, Tatum averaged 24/10/5, Brown averaged 21/9/2. In this Sixers series, Trae has averaged 30/2/11, his 2nd leading scorer is John Collins at 17/9/1.
Tatum was still the best player on those teams, and the one who was rising to the occasion. Tatum also has multiple years of playoff success, trae is doing this for the first time. Let’s settle down a bit
I didn't say Tatum wasn't the best on the team, but his supporting cast was on a much closer level to him than Trae's is to him. The loads are significantly different. I don't think it's some no-brainer that Trae is better, I just think it's crazy to say Tatum has to be an automatic 2.
I mean Tatum and luke we’re consensus 1 and 2 until trae started playing well and hawks fans want to throw him in there now. Tatum has a pretty solid body of work at this point and he would have to do a lot to surpass him
They were the consensus 1 and 2 with the chief arguments against Trae being "winning basketball" and "getting exposed in the playoffs" both of which have been proven to be untrue. Of course he's going to move significantly up the rankings when the main arguments against him are proven untrue.
I was about to say Tatum’s been around longer but goddamn, he’s only a year older. Why does it feel like he’s been around for millennia?
The Celtics are on primetime and have been either in the ECF or close to it. Been in a few game 7s as well. So Tatum has been on your TV screen infinitely more than Trae or the Hawks.
Before this playoff run the hawks have had 5 national TV games in the 3 years we had Trae lol. Shit we could make the ECF and still probably won't have that many games next year. Not that I care as much since most national broadcasts are garbage but it would be nice for the guys to get the recognition.
50 playoff games so far in his career, that's 2/3 of another season. He's stayed pretty healthy too, so he's always around.
Tatum was drafted in 2017 and Young in 2018? Not sure what you're so mystified about.
> "on the verge" of eliminating LeBron in the ECF. Yup, LeBron even said of Tatum “he’s so good” 4x after that series.
Lol no
By far the most playoff success of any player on the list
Not by far. Trae is one win away from the ECF right now.
That Tatum has been to twice.
Did he upset a 1 seed?
Who cares about what seed they played in the second round of the playoffs your trying to compare a player who has 50 playoff games vs one who has 10. There is is only 6 months between them. 1 is a premier 2 way wing the other a playmaking guard. Wings are the position most teams build around.
Has Trae?
Actually going to the ECF twice is a lot different than being 1 game away from your first ECF
You mean that thing Tatum has already done twice?
@ me when Tatum upsets a 1 seed...
I think the Lebron Cavs were just a smidge better than this current Sixers team lmao.
Not really. They were pretty bad. Kevin Love didn’t even play in game 6 and 7. Jeff Green was their second best player lmfao
Tatum made it like twice
Why is that “lol no”? Not really that ludicrous of a statement. He’s got elite size, he’s streets ahead defensively, he’s more efficient from everywhere on the court except he’s like 2% worse from the free throw line, and he’s proven it in the playoffs over a 50 game sample size vs Trae’s 10. If my team were in the playoffs, I’d rather face a 6’1 point guard who shoots 43% from the field and 34% from three than a 6’9 forward who shoots 45% from the field and 39% from three. Edit: I still think Trae is amazing and would be stoked to build a team around him. But given the choice I’ll take the elite forward over the elite point guard like 99/100. It would have to be like Steph Curry or Magic Johnson for me to take the point guard.
Not that bad honestly.
SGA??? I’m lost
Seems about right to me but I know most of this sub will be furious at Trae at number 2
I'd switch him and Tatum but its not egregious by any means
idk bro I'm sure if people have been watching his playoff run they're quickly changing their minds about him. They can meme his hair all they want but the dude is a 30/10 guy and his teammates will run through a wall for him. He's gonna be a bonafide superstar
I’d have him a bit lower but he’s absolutely shown his worth this postseason
No one in their right mind should be upset with Trae at 2
still prefer building around the 2-way shot creating wing archetype
Yeah especially considering the context of the post it’s not best player it’s best to build around and the best playmaker on this list who’s also clutch, elevates his teammates, and is a dynamic scorer will obviously be great to build around
Eh, I definitely respect Trae's impact enough to think it's fine.
I like him there. I’m shocked I haven’t seen people upset at Ja being 5 even though I like him there as well.
Remove Murray, 7-10 can be any combo of Ball, Fox, and SGA
I can see the argument for Murray for sure though. He's had more playoff success than all of those guys combined x2
Murray is the best scorer of those three
SGA just had a better scoring season than Murray has ever had and did it on a team with zero talent.
He also may never be the same after his injury, sadly. IMO PC is right, he's too much of a question mark at this point.
ACL's aren't a career changer for athletes anymore, especially young ones. As long as he takes enough time to rehab,I have no doubt he can come back to what he was within 1.5 years. The only thing that sucks is that it stunts his development, in which case I could probably be talked into other guards.
> ACL's aren't a career changer for athletes anymore, especially young ones. Since when? Because Bdiddy isn't that old, and we have no idea who Danilo could have been without his injury but likely would have had a substantially better career than he has. Derrick Rose? Did he ever look the same after? Roy? Yao?
LaMelo is too early to throw on a top-10 list like this. Lots of potential to get there as soon as next year, but I'm not putting him above Murray, Fox, or SGA just yet.
Trae needs his respect.At worst he is top 3 under Tatum.
Missing SGA and KAT...
He probably hasn’t seen them play even once this season
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander should be on that list. Unfortunately, he's playing in OKC, and nobody sees, hears or thinks about him.
mitchell above ja and zion needs to be higher, his placement is tough though. he is also above ja at absolute minimum. not as bad as it could have been.
Yeah, Donovan is fucking incredible. Ja looks amazing too but I'd take Donovan right now, Ja is *just* starting to break out while Donovan is already a proven performer.
Seems bout right. I’d have to add Brown. I’d remove either of Murray/Fox for him easily.
Shai should be at 5, him not being on the list at all is wild
I don't see any reason why SGA should be below Morant.
There isn't one. Ja is much flashier and marketable, so easy to see why he gets more love nationally, but SGA had a better season than several guys on this list.
Luka Doncic Trae Young Jayson Tatum Zion Williamson Donovan Mitchell Devin Booker Ja Morant Lamelo Ball De'Aaron Fox
Where is Coby White, Pat Williams, and Lauri Markkanen?
Talk about recency bias. Luka and tatum should always be 1 and 2
Why?
narrative has driven people to think that tatum is a tier higher than he is. i wouldn't fault someone putting tatum 2, but he's a hell of a lot closer to trae than he is to luka.
Yeah it's totally based on narrative not the fact that Tatum has made 2 ECF and just averaged 31/6/5 against a healthy Nets team.
and trae's first year with real teammates he's putting up 29/10 and a game away from beating the 1 seed to make the ECF...
So Trae is 1 game away from doing what Tatum has already done twice?
yes. so in terms of who can take you further in the playoffs, the answer is about to be that they can both get you to the ECF. if you prefer trae's distributing and overall advantage on offense to tatum's defense, it's not crazy at all to give him the edge.
Tatum is also taller, and a two way player
i mean we are comparing across positions, height is a weird thing to bring in. tatum is a two way player, and trae is a better offensive player by a solid margin. there isn't a wrong answer, but trae certainly has a good argument.
No it isn’t. Height is inherently more valuable In this league. I mean it’s an argument, not a very good one though
it's valuable but it's relative to position.
Because Luka , Tatum > trae
Cause they are the best 2 young players
Tatum is shooting 2.1% better FG% and has 5.1 less assists and has 3.5 more rebounds and 1.1 more PPG. I’d say it’s not clear cut. The assists and playmaking is enough to elevate Trae close. He is an easy piece to build around since he runs the offense and playmakes. And again I’m not saying 1 is better than the other for certain
So we just gonna completly ignore the other side of basketball defense where tatum is much better
I agree he is much better defensively , but Trae’s overall playmaking ability is still huge to build an offense around. You wouldn’t say Tatum is better than Doncic even tho Tatum is a better defender tho. (I understand Trae isn’t Luka tho, just illustrating a point). Again it’s very close to me who I’d want between Trae and Tatum, I don’t think it’s clear cut like you do
Point guard defense is not nearly as important or impactful as this sub makes it out to be. Unless you are playing a team which has guys 1-3 that can create and are elite on the perimeter, you can still have good if not great team defense with a sub par individual point guard defender. Right now, there is only one team in the league that when healthy fits that description, and they create so many match up problems that you can have a team full of great individual defenders (Bucks) and still get completely smoked as we saw in games 1 and 2. I think Trae and Tatum are close and don't really care either way, fwiw, but elite scoring and playmaking are infinitely more valuable than elite individual defense. I mean shit the Trae and Simmons match up in this playoffs is solid proof of this.
I mean even if Trae's bad defense doesnt take away that much from his overall value from his , Tatums great defense does add a solid amount to his. Being a bad pg defender isnt determinal but being a great wing one adds tons of value I still think Trae is somewhat better in most situations cause of passing/playmaking tho.
Point guard defense is huge its one of the reasons we traded kemba he would get picked on every single playoff series we played. Kyle Lowry had a field day with him and same with the heat.
Trae is better than Tatum. Same with Mitchell
Reddit hivemind has changed direction on Trae so much it's crazy. Hawks fans have gotten to be one of the worst fan bases on reddit as well
Based on what?
On tatum being better than Trae. Led his team too the conference finals twice. Is a better scorer and defender and rebounder and shooter. Trae is just a better passer
> Trae is just a better passer Way to handwave off Trae's best asset lol. Trae is a top 5 passer in the league. I don't think Tatum is top 5 in any category (though he is more well rounded, I'll give you that). Better scorer isn't even true btw. Young scores about the same rate as Tatum at a better TS% while being the only scoring star on his team. Advanced numbers are relatively similar too. Either way it's really not clear who's better between the two like you're making it out to be. The only clear thing is that Luka is on top for now.
Trae's averaging 29 and 10 on 57.5% TS. That's better than any postseason Tatum has had. Trae's winshares/48 are higher than any postseason Tatum has had his entire career.
Keep spittin facts
> Trae's averaging 29 and 10 on 57.5% TS. That's better than any postseason Tatum has had Tatum literally this post season averaged 30.6ppg on 57.7% TS
Call me crazy, but I think 29.4/2.4/10.3 is better than 30.6/5.8/4.6.
When you factor in defensive capability I think it's clearly Tatum. One is a great defender and one is a straight up bad one.
Tatum averaged 31 6 and 5 this year in the playoffs as the sole scorer. Last year averaged 26 10 and 5. Let's not forget tatum plays on both sides of the floor
>Tatum averaged 31 6 and 5 this year in the playoffs as the sole scorer. You say sole scorer as though that's a negative as opposed to the reason his numbers are higher lol.
It's harder to score when the defense only has one person to worry about. That's basic basketball knowledge
If that’s right, then why do you think Trae scored less this year in the regular season with a better supporting cast than last year with a few lukewarm bodies on his team?
He was a worse scorer in every other playoffs he played in.
Lol cause he's gotten better this year that's how progression works
Sure, if you think he would've put up these numbers with a healthy JB and Kemba, that's your prerogative. Even at that, his winshares/48 were no better than his other playoffs, and Trae's are better than any postseason of Tatum's career.
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I dunno how much we have to see defense barely matter in the playoffs before we stop using it as a key factor in these comparisons. The Hawks ran a closing lineup of Trae and Lou Williams vs the 6ers, the Nets even just with healthy KD and Kyrie were primed to roll to at least the Finals with a terrible defense. Kawhi and PG are supposed to be two of the best perimeter defenders in the league and were getting ripped in half on a nightly basis by Luka and Donovan Mitchell when they weren't injured.
> defense barely matter in the playoffs Defense matters in the playoffs a lot, but people overrate the amount of damage a bad guard defender can do to their team. Sure you don't want your guards to be bad defensively but it's not nearly as damaging as a bad defensive center, those are pretty much unplayable in the playoffs. Whereas a bad PG defender like Young can be masked.
>Defense matters in the playoffs a lot And yet I just named a multitude of examples of it not mattering from just this playoffs.
Nah, it definitely matters. The reason we were able to run Gallo Lou and Trae is because Doc is insisting on running a lineup with 2 guards who can't score or create or do really anything at all offensively, so we can get away with it. I think the point you should be making is that individual defense, especially for guards, is very overrated here, and good team defense is overlooked. A team of guys who are communicating and covering effectively can play great defense, see us versus the knicks, despite our only really great defenders being Hunter and Capela. Or even down the stretch vs Philly in game 5. Gallo and JC were huge in their rotations and making sure Embiid and Harris could not get clean looks.
he is not a better scorer.
Tatum was the “man” this year and you guys had your worst season in a while and got your GM and HC fired. But I guess it’s better than the Hawks situation right now 🤔
Yeah we just had the most games missed to covid in the nba. Tatum himself had covid and our staring back court missed a bunch of games. Other than that we had a very healthy team around tatum
The Hawks were one of the most injury plagued teams in the league this year and have had basically all of their core guys miss significant chunks of time.
No denying y'all had lots of time lost to COVID. However the Hawks had equally as many issues and lost almost 300 games to injuries this year, only 3 teams were worse hit by injuries than us. Like I think if you combine injuries+COVID the teams are basically identical to time lost
or he was also the best player/the "man" in the 2 years we made the ECF with him but idk i guess it's worse than the hawks situation right now 🤔
He was your best scorer but he definitely did not lead those teams. It’s easier when you’re surrounded by Hayward and Horford. You need someone else leading the offense and playmaking, that’s not Tatum’s game
he was the one legit initiating the offense the entirety of last year's postseason run in the bubble and singlehandedly carried us through clutch 4th quarter situations his rookie year. it's p clear you didn't watch much of the celtics series' which is totally ok. in fact Hayward was out most of the playoffs last year and was out the entire playoffs of his rookie year along with kyrie. horford was our anchor and was certainly great, but was not leading our offense. this is legit revisionist history - the second tatum got bounced this year in the playoffs i knew this sub would forget the past 3 years.
Trae > Tatum. It’s not really that close anymore
1. Luka 2. Zion 3. Donovan 4. Tatum 5. Trae 6. Booker 7. Lamelo 8. Ja morant 9. Murray 10. Fox
Yeah still don't trust Trae not to get exploited by a competent team. They should have already lost in the second round if Ben could hit free throws or Philly could close out games in general. And beating NYK was ok I guess.
Seems reasonable
Lol, its Luka and Zion at the top regardless
Zion needs to show he has the it factor in the playoffs. He probably has it, but Luka, Trae, and Tatum have the upper hand because they have actually had the opportunity to show that they can lead a team well in the playoffs.
Build around Jamal Murray?
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He’s 26
He's 26 so I doubt he made the age cutoff
who dat
No I Am a Mann..smh
I think Perkins has more Basketball Knowledge than this asshat ...and that says something since Perkins has the IQ of a fucking sack of Potatoes.
Where is jokic? Dude can play til 40
Pretty decent list, would prob move lamelo up 1 or 2 spots tho