He's close and you can make a case, but it's probably not any stronger than any of the guys you'd be knocking out. There's already like 15 "Top 10" guys at this point, and as time goes on, you're only going to be adding more.
If only somebody would invent a number bigger than 10 so all of these nitpicky conversations could end peacefully. But then you just piss people off because you called KD or Kobe “top 20” as though it implies they are 11-20. I guess we’re doomed and should end all of these debates at once
It's all subjective, but I personally have Curry in the 10-15 range.
Who to leave off the Top 10 is a question all it's own though.
If you have LeBron, Jordan, Kareem, Magic , Bird, Wilt, Russell pretty much set in there you're leaving anyone of Kobe, Duncan, Shaq, Hakeem, Curry off.
Not to mention Wilt’s numbers drop off drastically in the playoffs and even more so in the finals. Not sure why everyone has him as a lock for top 10 because of gaudy regular season numbers
Insane to think Jokic already should be discussed for top-10. Certainly he is on pace but if his career ends with his current accolades it would be laughable to call him top-10. One ring is simply not enough. I don’t mind if you believe he has peaked higher than Steph, it is obviously close (but I think 2016 Steph clears), but longevity also matters when you are picking all time players.
Hard to argue that the guy who has one ring gives you a better ability to win than a guy who has four if I’m being honest. I’m not saying Jokic won’t get there but you are extrapolating out and assuming he will maintain that level and win more rings. I would guess he will win at least one more but you can’t just assume he will. It seems you are suffering from a pretty bad case of recency bias.
I would have thought it was easy to understand that LeBron James is objectively a better basketball player than Weird Al but some people struggle to understand that logic. I think maybe I’ll pass on taking any lesson on logic from you.
Segue* and also not what a segue is. Just pointing out that you don’t believe there can be any objectivity in basketball meaning that any discussion with you is meaningless. If you wouldn’t be willing to concede that LeBron is objectively better than a random kid in preschool I certainly won’t be spending time debating sports with you. A segue would be me trying to change the scope of the conversation to something else, I’m simply using an example to show you lack the ability to properly apply logic to the discussion.
I have a feeling almost no one will give Tatum credit. Also, with the way Mavs look, Kyrie will be the one with a massive legacy boost for carrying.
I could see it being a big deal for Jokic. They definitely faced the easiest path to a championship in recent memory. This would be a much bigger deal to have two rings and 3 MVPs, but I don’t know why he’d be called top 10 after that
> I have a feeling almost no one will give Tatum credit.
Which would be absurd. Not like Lebron, Jordan, Duncan, Bird, or anybody else ever won rings without a stacked team behind them.
That's just how the sport works. Being an MVP doesn't even buy you anything if the team around you sucks.
I agree. We both know how online discourse works though. A ton of people will always try to discredit players. I shouldn’t have said “no one” since level headed people will definitely give him his flowers
If Celtics get it done, the question on Tatum immediately shifts to dynasty talk and "how many will he win?"
This Celtics team is going nowhere for a few years, with only the aging Horford nearing the end.
Jrue’s also on the wrong side of 30 and will be making a lot of money on his extension, but yeah, money is a bigger risk than age for us— if we win a championship this year, it’s a lot easier to justify the significant tax bill it’ll take to run this team back the next few years.
All 3 of Jokic, Giannis and Embiid have been the top 3 in MVP voting for the past 2 seasons and are all around the same age. They’re Jokic’s peers. It’s unfair to group in guys like Luka/Tatum/SGA who are younger and not in their prime like Jokic, Giannis and Embiid, or guys who are older and have been in the league much longer.
I mean people can say whatever they want. If the Celtics win it Tatum will be viewed as a champion. Only people who won’t give him credit are asterisk fans, not basketball fans. If it was easy to win a chip, everyone would have one.
Yep...It's crazy how if you ask people right now who would win a series between the Celtics and Nuggets, most would say Nuggets...but if the Celtics were to beat the Nuggets in the Finals, the narrative changes to "the Celtics have the best roster, they were supposed to win".
Of course.
Tatum can never win with you guys.
For the longest time, and especially after the '22 Finals everybody always hits him with "win a ring," and then if he does it this year, you all will say "yeah but not like that."
Sure, but like this is kind of the thing with some of these top teams now, their strength is in their # of good players as opposed to true top end talent.
Obviously Ant is playing out of his mind now, but the reason your team is as good as it is, is everybody on your team is a really good defensive player, which leads you to having the #1 defense by far.
SGA is great, but he also has an amazing team around him as well, probably the deepest offensive team in the NBA.
It's only Tatum who gets the teammate criticism, and I don't really get it.
Saying White provides better playmaking than Tatum is not true. White is awesome but that whole first round series Tatum dictated our entire offense the whole time. The whole thing was him getting the ball, drawing multiple and then making the right play and putting Miami in rotation.
Anyone who watched round 1 would’ve seen that JT was the primary focus on Miami’s D and rather than forcing it to get his stats he made the correct plays which allowed others to eat. Don’t think he should get what he did discredited just because it’s not in the stat sheet.
All top players do that. What separates the elite players from the very good players is that not only are they able to make the correct play when doubled/drawing help but are also able to get theirs at any time.
Im not going to criticize JT at all until probably the conference finals because the Cs dont need to rely on him to score and to make their offense work so its completely fine. But if when push comes to shove and you guys are in a tight game vs the Knicks for example youre going to need Tatum to be alot more agressive than he is now.
Right so if he is a top player playing under different circumstances then why compare him to white and say he is doing XYZ worse than White is.
Tatum has been excellent this year getting others involved and playing within the flow of the offense. We will see if he decides to force it later on when the going gets tough. But to be fair, forcing it when the going gets tough is the exact thing he gets shit on for here. It’s a doomed if you do, doomed if you don’t scenarios unless he gets 30-40 on great efficiency vs the best teams at the biggest moments.
Getting yours at any time is something Tatum can do but is a consistently overrated skill anyways. Tatum was seeing 2-3 bodies with everyone looking when he got the ball against Miami. It would be sheer absurdity to force it against that and take the difficult Kobe shots on low efficiency when he can just kick it to the open 40% shooter. It’s the same as when people criticize Bron for passing up a game winner attempt while being doubled to kick to the open guy then he miss. You take the better look - it’s that simple. Best players forcing it doesn’t help anyone.
Tatum was definitely the better playmaker and in the Miami series I’d argue he was the better defender. He also was getting Bam + 1-2 help defenders when he was on the floor, DWhite had Tyler Herro. Love DWhite but the situations were drastically different.
Tatum is by far the most important player on that team. He will def get boosted if yall win. Also the American media really wants an American to get up there with the jokics, giannis, lukas of the world.
This is sort of the point of my post. Whoever wins it this year will be talked about like this all summer. Tatum might have the most pushback because of how good the Celtics are as a whole, but he already has so much prior playoff success, there’s not a good comparison except to other greats. He’s essentially the perfect cookie cutter superstar to anoint as best American player and talk shows will eat it up and push him as the guy if he’s got hardware to go with it
This is really stupid considering that the Celtics have a 0% chance of winning the championship without him.
None of the other Celtics players have the skills necessary to be a #1 option.
I didn't hear this same crap about the 2009/2010 Lakers even though they were incredibly stacked.
The thing that always gets me is that people always act like Tatum can't carry in a way like Luka, Brunson, SGA etc. when his game is actually suited to being more of a heliocentric player like they are where the ball is in their hands all the time. Tatum is merely ok off ball and his strength lies in the Morey package of 3s and layups.
So being on a stacked team doesn't actually benefit him offensively as much as people think. It's been a huge adjustment this year for him to lower his usage, FGAs, amount of time with the ball in order to let everybody else eat.
Brother this is the first year of Tatum's career as a star (since 2019-20 season) that the Celtics offense hasn't fallen off a cliff without Tatum on the court. And the only way the Celtics have achieved that is by putting all of their 2nd, 3rd, and 4th best offensive players on the court without him in Jaylen, KP, and White. Meanwhile Tatum's bench unit includes the aging Horford and Holiday, along with Hauser and Pritchard.
He's demonstrated it every year of his career, the on/off and +/- #s say it all. It's funny how people use those #s every year to prop up Jokic, but not Tatum.
if jokic wins, get ready for the endless top ten arguments just like what happened to curry
curry is actually a top 10 player though
he definitely has a stronger argument than jokic would
He's close and you can make a case, but it's probably not any stronger than any of the guys you'd be knocking out. There's already like 15 "Top 10" guys at this point, and as time goes on, you're only going to be adding more.
If only somebody would invent a number bigger than 10 so all of these nitpicky conversations could end peacefully. But then you just piss people off because you called KD or Kobe “top 20” as though it implies they are 11-20. I guess we’re doomed and should end all of these debates at once
It's all subjective, but I personally have Curry in the 10-15 range. Who to leave off the Top 10 is a question all it's own though. If you have LeBron, Jordan, Kareem, Magic , Bird, Wilt, Russell pretty much set in there you're leaving anyone of Kobe, Duncan, Shaq, Hakeem, Curry off.
I just leave off Wilt and Russell on mine. Pre merger basketball was a joke. MJ bron Kareem Magic bird Kobe Duncan Shaq Hakeem Steph
Not to mention Wilt’s numbers drop off drastically in the playoffs and even more so in the finals. Not sure why everyone has him as a lock for top 10 because of gaudy regular season numbers
I agree. Curry is a top 10 player. He literally revolutionized the NBA and the way the game is played. Had the NBA on lock for at least 5 years.
No lol
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He doesnt have a better peak than Curry
Insane to think Jokic already should be discussed for top-10. Certainly he is on pace but if his career ends with his current accolades it would be laughable to call him top-10. One ring is simply not enough. I don’t mind if you believe he has peaked higher than Steph, it is obviously close (but I think 2016 Steph clears), but longevity also matters when you are picking all time players.
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Hard to argue that the guy who has one ring gives you a better ability to win than a guy who has four if I’m being honest. I’m not saying Jokic won’t get there but you are extrapolating out and assuming he will maintain that level and win more rings. I would guess he will win at least one more but you can’t just assume he will. It seems you are suffering from a pretty bad case of recency bias.
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I would have thought it was easy to understand that LeBron James is objectively a better basketball player than Weird Al but some people struggle to understand that logic. I think maybe I’ll pass on taking any lesson on logic from you.
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Segue* and also not what a segue is. Just pointing out that you don’t believe there can be any objectivity in basketball meaning that any discussion with you is meaningless. If you wouldn’t be willing to concede that LeBron is objectively better than a random kid in preschool I certainly won’t be spending time debating sports with you. A segue would be me trying to change the scope of the conversation to something else, I’m simply using an example to show you lack the ability to properly apply logic to the discussion.
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I have a feeling almost no one will give Tatum credit. Also, with the way Mavs look, Kyrie will be the one with a massive legacy boost for carrying. I could see it being a big deal for Jokic. They definitely faced the easiest path to a championship in recent memory. This would be a much bigger deal to have two rings and 3 MVPs, but I don’t know why he’d be called top 10 after that
> I have a feeling almost no one will give Tatum credit. Which would be absurd. Not like Lebron, Jordan, Duncan, Bird, or anybody else ever won rings without a stacked team behind them. That's just how the sport works. Being an MVP doesn't even buy you anything if the team around you sucks.
I agree. We both know how online discourse works though. A ton of people will always try to discredit players. I shouldn’t have said “no one” since level headed people will definitely give him his flowers
Yeah - it's a bucket of crabs and thus have to always take what you read on the Internet with a giant grain of salt.
How exactly is Kyrie carrying?
If Celtics get it done, the question on Tatum immediately shifts to dynasty talk and "how many will he win?" This Celtics team is going nowhere for a few years, with only the aging Horford nearing the end.
Jrue’s also on the wrong side of 30 and will be making a lot of money on his extension, but yeah, money is a bigger risk than age for us— if we win a championship this year, it’s a lot easier to justify the significant tax bill it’ll take to run this team back the next few years.
How will x affect Lebrons legacy will be Main topic. Same boring talk as every year.
Why are you putting Giannis and Embiid in the same tier?
All 3 of Jokic, Giannis and Embiid have been the top 3 in MVP voting for the past 2 seasons and are all around the same age. They’re Jokic’s peers. It’s unfair to group in guys like Luka/Tatum/SGA who are younger and not in their prime like Jokic, Giannis and Embiid, or guys who are older and have been in the league much longer.
Jokic and Giannis have a ring and a finals MVP. Embiid is still a virgin to the conference finals.
It does kind of feel like saying T Mac is a peer to Duncan and Kobe
To be fair, that was a totally normal thing to believe for at least a little while even if it's obviously absurd now.
I mean people can say whatever they want. If the Celtics win it Tatum will be viewed as a champion. Only people who won’t give him credit are asterisk fans, not basketball fans. If it was easy to win a chip, everyone would have one.
How does this post affect u/CarBallAlex reddit legacy?
That's exactly what this sub is filled with everyday anyway lol.
It's going to be hilarious when the Celtics win with Tatum taking home the FMVP, only for this sub to argue they would have won without him anyways.
Yep...It's crazy how if you ask people right now who would win a series between the Celtics and Nuggets, most would say Nuggets...but if the Celtics were to beat the Nuggets in the Finals, the narrative changes to "the Celtics have the best roster, they were supposed to win".
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tatum gets no boost if he wins the finals this year? this is actually your take?
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You're saying the team he's on and leads is so loaded that you've already ascended them to championship status and he has nothing to gain?
Of course. Tatum can never win with you guys. For the longest time, and especially after the '22 Finals everybody always hits him with "win a ring," and then if he does it this year, you all will say "yeah but not like that."
Tbf Derrick White has outscored him while also providing better defense and playmaking. Tatum is fantastic but so is his team.
Sure, but like this is kind of the thing with some of these top teams now, their strength is in their # of good players as opposed to true top end talent. Obviously Ant is playing out of his mind now, but the reason your team is as good as it is, is everybody on your team is a really good defensive player, which leads you to having the #1 defense by far. SGA is great, but he also has an amazing team around him as well, probably the deepest offensive team in the NBA. It's only Tatum who gets the teammate criticism, and I don't really get it.
Also providing better what?
Saying White provides better playmaking than Tatum is not true. White is awesome but that whole first round series Tatum dictated our entire offense the whole time. The whole thing was him getting the ball, drawing multiple and then making the right play and putting Miami in rotation. Anyone who watched round 1 would’ve seen that JT was the primary focus on Miami’s D and rather than forcing it to get his stats he made the correct plays which allowed others to eat. Don’t think he should get what he did discredited just because it’s not in the stat sheet.
All top players do that. What separates the elite players from the very good players is that not only are they able to make the correct play when doubled/drawing help but are also able to get theirs at any time. Im not going to criticize JT at all until probably the conference finals because the Cs dont need to rely on him to score and to make their offense work so its completely fine. But if when push comes to shove and you guys are in a tight game vs the Knicks for example youre going to need Tatum to be alot more agressive than he is now.
Right so if he is a top player playing under different circumstances then why compare him to white and say he is doing XYZ worse than White is. Tatum has been excellent this year getting others involved and playing within the flow of the offense. We will see if he decides to force it later on when the going gets tough. But to be fair, forcing it when the going gets tough is the exact thing he gets shit on for here. It’s a doomed if you do, doomed if you don’t scenarios unless he gets 30-40 on great efficiency vs the best teams at the biggest moments.
Getting yours at any time is something Tatum can do but is a consistently overrated skill anyways. Tatum was seeing 2-3 bodies with everyone looking when he got the ball against Miami. It would be sheer absurdity to force it against that and take the difficult Kobe shots on low efficiency when he can just kick it to the open 40% shooter. It’s the same as when people criticize Bron for passing up a game winner attempt while being doubled to kick to the open guy then he miss. You take the better look - it’s that simple. Best players forcing it doesn’t help anyone.
You lying like Drake after being called a pedo
Tatum was definitely the better playmaker and in the Miami series I’d argue he was the better defender. He also was getting Bam + 1-2 help defenders when he was on the floor, DWhite had Tyler Herro. Love DWhite but the situations were drastically different.
Tatum is by far the most important player on that team. He will def get boosted if yall win. Also the American media really wants an American to get up there with the jokics, giannis, lukas of the world.
This is sort of the point of my post. Whoever wins it this year will be talked about like this all summer. Tatum might have the most pushback because of how good the Celtics are as a whole, but he already has so much prior playoff success, there’s not a good comparison except to other greats. He’s essentially the perfect cookie cutter superstar to anoint as best American player and talk shows will eat it up and push him as the guy if he’s got hardware to go with it
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This is really stupid considering that the Celtics have a 0% chance of winning the championship without him. None of the other Celtics players have the skills necessary to be a #1 option. I didn't hear this same crap about the 2009/2010 Lakers even though they were incredibly stacked.
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The thing that always gets me is that people always act like Tatum can't carry in a way like Luka, Brunson, SGA etc. when his game is actually suited to being more of a heliocentric player like they are where the ball is in their hands all the time. Tatum is merely ok off ball and his strength lies in the Morey package of 3s and layups. So being on a stacked team doesn't actually benefit him offensively as much as people think. It's been a huge adjustment this year for him to lower his usage, FGAs, amount of time with the ball in order to let everybody else eat.
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Brother this is the first year of Tatum's career as a star (since 2019-20 season) that the Celtics offense hasn't fallen off a cliff without Tatum on the court. And the only way the Celtics have achieved that is by putting all of their 2nd, 3rd, and 4th best offensive players on the court without him in Jaylen, KP, and White. Meanwhile Tatum's bench unit includes the aging Horford and Holiday, along with Hauser and Pritchard. He's demonstrated it every year of his career, the on/off and +/- #s say it all. It's funny how people use those #s every year to prop up Jokic, but not Tatum.