Is it also fair to perceive Tatum as someone young to be the best player on a championship team with signature playoff performances in Milwaukee and Philadelphia the last two postseasons that were interrupted by injuries?
Tatum or Ant?
- Thread starter Kliq
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probably better to be a player like GA who has won one but has also lost in the first round four times.
Until Boston sent out the reserves to play the last four games, they were 62-16, which would be the same winning percentage. And the Celtics did that without cherry-picking games.
Depends. Are we talking about what he has actually done or potential upside? If he's 29 or 30 and hasn't won, I think you have to be thinking of him as more of a top sidekick on a winning team as opposed to being THE guy. At 26, you don't.
Embiid is 29. He seems clearly to be a better regular season player than Tatum has been (although Tatum still has room for improvement) but I think the lesson of the past several years is that the playoffs are different and not in a way that is kind to Mr. Embiid. Unlike with Tatum, I think it is nearly time to start asking whether Embiid can ever be THE guy on a champion.
With Embiid, it's been the perfect storm of injuries and bad teams.
Injured the first 2 seasons and limited to 30 games his 3rd. Lost to a very good Celtics team in his 4th year, but things looked promising with Ben Simmons winning RoY. Despite the oft-cited chemistry issues with Jimmy Butler in his 5th season, they lost Game 7 by 2 to a possessed Kawhi and the eventual champion Raptors.
The 2020 76'er's had let Butler walk and really were nothing more than Embiid and a Simmons starting his decline and so were easy fodder to a deep and reasonably healthy Celtics team in the bubble. Embiid actually played quite well, but had nobody else that could score on that team. The following season was the Simmons/Doc fiasco against the Hawks, but Embiid's stats were equal to that of his regular season numbers.
The following season, Morey had emptied the well to get Harden, but Embiid was injured by the time their 2nd round matchup with the Heat started. Finally, last year they were 1 win from upsetting the Celtics in the conference semis, and it wasn't Embiid's fault that Harden lost the shooting variance battle the last 2 games (and Harden last year was useless when his shots weren't falling).
Embiid and Maxey are a formidable team when healthy, and I wouldn't normally count them out as being potential spoilers. Jimmy Butler had a similar reputation, until suddenly at the age of 30 he was playing in the Finals. It's just unlikely that Embiid will be healthy this playoff season.
I think injuries are smily par for the course with Embiid. It's true that a healthier Embiid would have greater updside than the current one, but that guy doesn't exist.
As to bad teams, yes. But. They have tried a few different ways to build around him and none of them have worked.
At some point it is on the player(s).
I wouldn't count the healthy Sixers out, assuming we ever see them, but I think that without a better Embiid sidekick than Harden they aren't a team a worry about. I worry more about Miami, TBH.
Eh, that's a pretty charitable view of how Embiid performed against the Celtics.
He was hurt and didn't play Game 1 (which Harden won basically by himself)
In Games 2-7 he shot 42% from the field (never topping 50% once) and had by far his worst performance of the series in Game 7 when he went 5-18 from the field and got cooked repeatedly on switches by Jayson Tatum.
In the games they lost, Harden looked equally as bad but they both didn't show up when it mattered (and both looked like they'd rather be anywhere but on the court in that Game 7)
As usual, I disagree with Timpf.
View: https://twitter.com/TheVolumeSports/status/1786855819776311762
View: https://twitter.com/TheVolumeSports/status/1786855819776311762
I’m torn because I actually think the Wolves win the series, but damn I don’t want to hear the Ant shit.
Feels a bit prisoner of the momenty. I don't think Tatum had a particularly good series against Miami (largely because of the decisionmaking/playmaking especially after g1), and Edwards was very good against Phoenix. The contexts are a bit different though and we're talking 4-5 games.
The only way you can say he didn’t have a good series is if you didn’t watch the games.
The only way you can say he did have a good series is if you didn't watch the games.
There are two very different questions being posed here:
-Who has the higher ceiling?
-Who is better right now?
I actually think both are fairly straightforward. I don't disagree that the chances of Tatum ever becoming the best player in the league are pretty darn low at this point (and that's fine, plenty of players won multiple titles without ever being the best player in the league), and given his age, attitude and physical abilities, Ant still has a realistic shot at that (at least until Wemby really comes of age). At the same time, I don't want to hear that Ant has performed better in the playoffs when we're comparing his 15 1st round games with Tatum's 99 playoff games (35 in R1, 31 in R2, 27 in the CF and 6 in the finals). Everyone knows that the playoffs get exponentially harder from round to round, comparing round 1 performance to conference finals and finals is only slightly more relevant than using preseason and summer league stats.
Anyone thinking that Ant is a better player than Tatum RIGHT NOW is a prisoner of the moment. It's also not remotely controversial to think Ant has a higher ceiling.
The only way you can say Tatum didn't have a good series is if you watched the games and discount defense entirely.
This forum is a scoreboard forum.
I said it on here the other day, Ant is one of the very few players who I could see passing Tatum.
But in a heartbeat right now? Fuck off with that.
But in a heartbeat right now? Fuck off with that.
He'll be exactly where Tatum was in 2022, coming off of a sweep of a KD super friends team followed by a huge series win against the consensus best player and defending champ (Giannis/Milwaukee). It's great that people are finally getting really excited about Ant, the crime here is dismissing Tatum as a guy who has plateaued and possibly missed his chance.
The athleticism is off the charts. It's crazy to watch how smooth, and quick, and bouncy, and strong he is
View: https://twitter.com/NBA_University/status/1786932077981520294
Players with multiple 40+ point playoff games before turning 23:
Luka Doncic—5
Anthony Edwards—3 (43 tonight)
LeBron James—3
Amar’e Stoudemire—3
Bob McAdoo—2
Kobe Bryant—2
Ja Morant—2
View: https://twitter.com/kirkgoldsberry/status/1786929725266407500
Players that have scored 35+ in 3 straight playoff games at age 22 or younger:
1. Lew Alcindor
2. Kobe Bryant
3. LeBron James
4. Anthony Edwards
Players with multiple 40+ point playoff games before turning 23:
Luka Doncic—5
Anthony Edwards—3 (43 tonight)
LeBron James—3
Amar’e Stoudemire—3
Bob McAdoo—2
Kobe Bryant—2
Ja Morant—2
View: https://twitter.com/kirkgoldsberry/status/1786929725266407500
Players that have scored 35+ in 3 straight playoff games at age 22 or younger:
1. Lew Alcindor
2. Kobe Bryant
3. LeBron James
4. Anthony Edwards
POINTZ! is what led nitwits to go crazy for Milwaukee when they got Dame by shipping out Jrue.
How'd that work out?
This ranking seems ripe for disruption by the end of these playoffs. Ant will have helium.
https://nbarankings.theringer.com/
https://nbarankings.theringer.com/
I get it. Just seems to have run its course here, that’s all.
A Dame/Giannis duo is still more dangerous than a Jrue/Giannis regardless of how the season went.
As the person who coined points, I mostly agree with you wrt "Pointz" usage in this forum.
In the "sophisticated" NBA media, unfortunately, it's gotten worse than ever. Everything I see/read/hear is some variation of "wow, that guy really put up points!"
And, as we saw with Ant tonight....points are good! Minny had no chance without his shotmaking. I just really, really dislike that there are other incredibly important ways for stars to impact basketball on the offensive end, and I can't really consume good analysis on that, because the discourse has swung so pointzy/heliocentric.
I just don't see how you replace Tatum with Ant in the Miami series and see the exact same outcome or better. Someone more knowledgeable than me on the NBA will have break that down for me.
And, my lord, superstar is a term that is getting tossed around way too liberally these days.
And, my lord, superstar is a term that is getting tossed around way too liberally these days.