But when KP doesn't generate his spot the result is a KP fallaway midrange. That's not a good shot at all. The difference I see is that it it pretty easy to read when KP is going to have a good matchup, position, etc while Tatum has a greater ability to create more off the dribble to create easier shots. There is a balance and by looking at KP early in the clock we often know what the best option is as we approach 10-12 on the shot clock.
I read that as nine feet, which might have been true for as far as I could tell.
This gives people an idea of how much is asked out of Cade which is why it is so unfair for talented young players to play on teams like this. He's their primary playmaker, their go-to scorer, a key rebounder, best perimeter defender, best post defender.....and couldn't even get a beer last year when training camp began.
Pistons are a good warning about why you don’t completely tank in the NBA. You can’t have Bojan as your only veteran of note, the young guys will develop faster if they are put in a position to succeed.
Unfortunately, Detroit hasn't completely tanked.
I feel the Pistons issues are that they are devoid of veterans to compete and show their younger teammates how the NBA game works....I def wouldn't have wanted them to remove the only two guys who have had any semblance of success as NBA players. The downside of keeping them however as you say is that you aren't adding draft capital. Is prefer having some veterans around as Cade and Duren are 22 and 20.
Agreed they have been poorly run for a while now & yes they have drafted awful.
Trade values now?
If KP doesn’t have position then don’t throw it to him in there.
Exactly....but that isn't a reliable set and you end up with the clock under 10 searching for Tatum to generate something off the dribble. When it's a step-back 3 he's the one blamed. There isn't a lot of time to run action in an NBA halfcoirt set....recognizing the KP matchup prior to engaging him goes a long way towards generating the best possible look.
Agreed. But it really isn’t that hard, with all the scouting they do, to know as soon as they come down the court whether KP has a favorable matchup on the block. You’ll know it within seconds.
Yes I don't think we disagree on this. That's pretty much what we did last night. There is a balance in that you can't go to KP every possession even with the favorable Cade matchup.....KP fatigue, reduce predictability, and keeping JT engaged with touches.
I agree that when he gets the ball around 7 or 8 on the shot clock, it's a less bad shot.
That was about as publicly negative as Joe could be about Tatum's 3-point shot selection without creating "Mazzulla Calls Out Tatum as a Chucker!" headlines. The coaching staff obviously can see this is an issue.
He did start it all with saying 'It's a shot he has to make' and 'It's a shot I'm comfortable with'.. before going on to talk about every game, team and defensive matchup is different and how they need to look at different spots against different teams and defenders. I guess you could interpret it as negative, but I think you're also possibly bringing your own bias into it there. I don't get the 'chucker' idea. Tatum is taking shots within the offense for the most part. He's shooting less threes per game than last year at 34% rather than 35%. He's taking 1.4 less shots a game than last year and his eFG% is the best of his career. His assist and turnover numbers are basically the same over the past four years. The idea that he's shooting it a ton.. he's 9th in the league in shots per game.. has basically 1 more shot per game than Curry..and is averaging 0.4 points a game less than him.
I think Tatum is having maybe his best season ever right now. He's been really good all-around, and has leveled up bigtime in the post.
Bobby kind of buried the lede there.
Tbf, I don't think that CJM was sugarcoating anything. It seemed pretty clear that they were having frank discussions with Tatum about making the right play, and choosing better when to drive or post.
Yes and no. What is and isn't a good shot for a player is, after a large enough sample size, dictated by how often the shot gets made. That is not open to argument. A Tatum pullup 3 is a bad shot (barring shot cock, two for one, end of game situations) not because I have some psychological disorder that causes me to irrationally dislike pullup 3s, but because the ball doesn't go through the hoop often enough. (And it obviously doesn't have to go through the hoop 100% of the time. Obviously players take good shots that don't go in.)
I don't know if your original use of "lazily jacking it" was meant to be suggestive but Im happy youve adopted the porn metaphor multiple times now.
Pull-Ups are 69% of his 3PA
It was impossible to initially say "lazily jacking it" without thinking of *something* suggestive, but someone else coined the "depressed porn addict" line, and I've simply leaned into it.
I kind of reject the argument Tatum Tatum needs to jack up iso threes to open up his drives. If you are defending Tatum, you generally want him taking iso threes off the dribble. If you get him to take that shot instead of driving you ahve done your job.
Right, he just needs to shift his on-ball touches to more driving and posting, and then get more of his 3s in the normal flow that happens in an offense as good as Boston's.
Tatum is undeniably better than Jaylen as a point of attack defender. But he’s also a better help defender and a better free safety. He’s better at all aspects of defense. Generally, I think the consensus here has been that the gap between them is the smallest on ball, which makes sense because Tatum has much better court awareness and Jaylen is pretty good at locking in on an individual when he’s able to focus on that.
Agree with this.
Yes, I wonder if what they really need to do is give SGA a bunch of different looks throughout the game (including Tatum) and then end with Tatum more consistently.
Cowherd gets most of his NBA takes from Jason Timpf, who is the host of NBA Tonight for the Volume (Herd owns the Volume). Timpf is a hardcore Laker/Bron fan (previously hosted Lakers Tonight) that rails hard against the Celtic's, the JAYs turnovers, & Tatum's low % pull-up 3s. He constantly says that the JAYs window is closing and he doesn't trust them in a big spot.
According to NBA.com, JT was 3-3 on step back 3Ps last night.
