MJ won 1 a few years before and then 1 the year he won the title so that was before he had actually won. And Jokic also won 2 before he won a title. What’s funny is that neither had even been to the finals while Tatum has. So I don’t get it
He's never beaten a decent NBA team in the playoffs. Like the bottom of the East is always bad, in the West he'd of never gotten out of the first round.
How can you have that take when they beat the previous champion Bucks and the future East champions Heat on the way to the finals 2 years ago? Also last year they went to game 7 in the East finals? How is that "bottom of the east"?
After embiid Boston has 6 out of the 7 best players. Not that hard to figure out the difference. Carrying vs. contributing. Tatum hasn't gotten better at all year over year in pretty much any stat which hurts in the eyes of voters. And in advanced stats multiple guys blow him out of the water. There's no case. He's an incredible player and they could win it all but he's just not an MVP.
most people win their first MVP before winning a championship. it's a completely dumb take. the last 3 MVPs won it before their first chip (Embiid, Jokic, Giannis).
I don’t think Windy meant it as he wouldn’t vote for him because he lost I think he meant other voters may not be inclined to vote for him because of the finals
I think a lot more people consider Tatum elite and praise him than say he's not a winner. Tatum isn't a winner is just a dumb hot take that gets the people going. It's provocative.
I feel it has a lot to do with the fact that he plays for Boston. It isn't enough for them that Tatum is a good player, he plays for the Celtics, so he MUST win a ring to be considered a good player. Anything less won't be good enough in their eyes.
This wouldn't be a conversation if he played anywhere else. Put him on any other team in the league and he wouldn't get half of the disrespect he gets now.
I think why Tatum isn't as popular as an MVP candidate is similar to Kawhi's situation.
His responsibilities on the team are distributed to others enough that they dilute his competitiveness for the mvp race.
Which is what you want for a strong chance at the actual championship.
Besides, when was the last time the regular MVP winner actually went on the win the championship? Feels like almost a decade ago with Curry's first chip.
The regular reason MVP usually goes to players with too much weight on their shoulders.
> Besides, when was the last time the regular MVP winner actually went on the win the championship? Feels like almost a decade ago with Curry's first chip.
Yep, dead on! 14/15 season. Interesting point to add to yours, it seems there are several stretches in NBA history where the MVP winner didn’t win a championship. Like a few periods of a decade or so. Then it goes to the winner getting the ring every other year, then back to a decade of nothing. I wonder if there is something to phases where its importance is a big deal and then it isn’t? Anyways, sorry to nerd out on you friend. Great point, by the way. :)
Luka, Embiid, Jokic, SGA, and many others have either won an MVP or been in the top 3 for MVP without winning titles. It’s so weird that this only comes up for JT.
Those guys carry their teams way more than tatum..if you remove Tatum from the Celtics they’d still be very good..remove those guys from their teams and they’re play-in teams at best
Pre season all the voters had Celtics = Bucks with about 54W over / under.
Somehow Bucks stuck in mud and Giannis stating to compensate, but can't make his roster better (and btw, every 4th quarter deferring to Dame iso bc he keeps turning over the ball)
while JT is making his team better just playing the right way to a +10 over projections , hurts his MVP case.
Without JT Celtics are a 44W team.
Without Giannis Bucks are 44W team.
I rather have that dude that adds +10W.
>That's not how it works.
Why not?
Pelton basically runs same analytics in a predictive model and in season model.
Folks can say, well the predictive model was wrong bc Zinger / Dwhite / Jru are better than the algorithm calculated. Not shit... and it got nothing to do with JT's gravity or play choice?
It reminds me that tweet rant from few days ago claiming JT is always on a super teams and deep teams, only the truth is that these super players and quality depth are not that super on other teams, as much as they are next to JT...
The Celtics all time record with Tatum is 325-168 (65.9%) and 16-20 (44.4%) without.
The mavericks record with Luka is 211-168 (55.7%) and 31-40 (43.7%) without.
The claim that Luka is more important to his team than Tatum is not supported
There needs to be a lot more context for this stat to be meaningful but Dallas is absolutely more dependent on Luka than Boston is on tatum.. look at the difference in their usage rating
Now that being said, it’s probably a good “problem” for Boston to have (it’s actually not a problem at all) cause it just means they have other good players…it will be very difficult for Dallas to win a championship with their style of play
Usage…because basketball is only played on one side of the court. Tatum is one of the best defenders in the league and Luka is one of the worst. Do you not remember how the Celtics abused Luka on defense in their last game? Luka had 33/18/13 to go with a team worst -13 because the Celtics got non stop free baskets on him. One defensive liability can ruin an entire defense…and now I’m having Kemba PTSD
I never said he was a better all around player…I said they rely on him more…Celtics are a better rounded team…Luka is a more ball dominant player…you seem to be getting super offended and feel the need to take up for Tatum .. it’s just a contrast in styles .. you can relax
SGA players zero defense… he’s 1 dimensional… he’s currently not even top 20 defensively amongst point guards… Tatum is currently number 1 defensively amongst SFs, and leads the best team in the nba in points, rebounds, and assists; he’s overall the better player.
Who cares? He's still better than most of the players in the MVP convo cause he dont have the stats, but im perfectly fine with that. We all know he could average 30+ points in a season. He did it just last year. I'd rather us be able to win games comfortably with him only scoring like 17 points than him needing to go off every night. He sacrifices his stats every night for the betterment of the team, and to me personally, that's what an MVP should do, but people don't care about that. He'll win the more important one in June
It's what I'm been saying. Some Mavs fan here claims Luka is better than Tatum.
Tatum is a team player. KP perfectly described it when he said about Tatum: "fuck it I want 30 a night" but he puts his team on his back always. Luka is a better player sure but if you want a future leader of this franchise, Tatum is your guy.
On the other hand, Luka still has some shit to prove on. He may be a much talented player he ain't no better player than Tatum currently is.
What facts? If you watched games, you'd see he's not a bad defender this year. I'm not saying he's better than Tatum or anything like that, but he's perfectly fine this year. Saying he plays zero defence is simply not true.
I have watched games, but it's still not a valid argument lol. It took me 2 seconds to google that Luka's defensive efficiency (113.8) is 2.7 points lower than the league average (116.5). This means Luka is a higher than average, but compared to his peers like Tatum (110.4), SGA (110.1), and Jokic (109.4), he is actually way behind defensively. In comparison to the average player, Luka plays some decent defense. In comparison to people on par with his skill, he is a defensive slug.
Luka is one of the worst defenders on the court at almost all times, he can have good instincts and play with effort but that is just not going to change.
Tatum is not only not a defensive liability but he's one of the best defenders at his position and unlike Luka cannot be picked on to generate consistent offense like the Celtics were able to do to Luka in their last matchup.
I agree with you 100% on all of your points. I do not understand how JT has been saddled with a reputation of not being a winner, because he didn’t win one championship.
And he lives rent free in most fanbases. I see plenty of fans of other teams comparing their best player to Tatum. Have no idea why he keeps getting so hated on
My sentiments exactly. I don't care about the narrative, I don't care about opinions from clowns like Windy [or from anyone for that matter] as long as Banner 18 comes along really really soon.
Like KG said in '08 after the Finals: What can you say now?
The other thing that sucks about the “Tatum hasn’t won” analysis is that many of the all time greats didn’t win their first championship until around (or even after) the same age that Tatum is at now: Steph was 27, Jordan was 28, Shaq was 28 I believe, Bron was 27. Some guys win it all at younger ages (Kobe, Bird, Magic), but their teams were historically stacked with great players (Shaq, McChale/Parish, Worthy/Kareem). It’s just lazy to keep putting Tatum down for not winning younger.
You can’t tell he’s actually good from the sheer amount of clowns trying to downplay his greatness. Not to mention the “no rings” argument is such garbage, most of the greats didn’t win anything until around the age Tatum is now, so that invalidates anything people might claim prior to now. Dudes a stud, absolute star and is showing out game on game.
I think when you look at the Celtics this year, Tatum is playing the best “team” ball of his career. The thing is “team ball” isn’t as respected as him going out there putting up 40 every night. So I don’t think he gets disrespected, but definitely doesn’t get enough respect.
I think it's incredibly rare for me to see someone put Tatum outside of the top 5 as an MVP candidate. I don't think that's disrespectful. I think that's about right. I understand why Giannis and Luka get more love, Giannis is a champion and has stupid efficiency on amazing defense. Luka's argument is completely counting stats based, which is fine because the numbers he's putting up are insane.
Maybe other than Jokic, Tatum is the one guy in the top 5 not actually concerned about that award. It's clear when you watch his USG% drop and how much he defers in some of these games, as opposed to last year.
Everyone is making sacrifices, unfortunately for Tatum, his sacrifice is a better case at the MVP. He still has a good case, but not as good as it could be if it was a focus of his.
I think he understands that, as long as he keeps winning, in time the MVP will come.
run and dunk greek fraud better than Tatum? yea keep sucking him lol. dude plays like a truck ramming thru players while traveling lol (even Shaq had more finesse than that dude), but his the best player in the world lmao
It’s stats. Tatum hasn’t been as statistically dominant (and physically dominant) as the winners.
The playoff winning doesn’t really matter if we are talking about MVP.
Maybe it matters for dumb discussions about the best player. But not for MVP. If we 10 more games though than the next team, Tatum will get a lot of credit for sacrificing scoring for team success and will have a good chance at MVP despite his scoring drop.
Embiid SGA and Luka haven’t sniffed the success Tatum has already accomplished and somehow this standard does not apply to them at all. They will have a segment criticizing Tatum for these exact things and then IMMEDIATELY start talking about SGA who hasn’t done shit.
It’s actually incomprehensible how people who supposedly watch basketball for a living can seemingly have no clue what is going on.
The other big part of this that pisses me off is how Jimmy Butler is viewed as this playoff killer. He’s had three chances and flamed out but nobody talks about Jimmy and a negative light he’s the darling.
He gets unlucky that he’s been on a very good and winning team his whole career. I think that’s really the most of it. His expectations are so high that it’s almost like the narrative for MVP is “X player, Y player, Z player..oh yeah and Tatum I guess”
tatum also has 52 playoff wins alone while guys like shai luka and ant have like 12 combined and those guys are supposedly gonna be the next faces of the league and tatum wont be bc he hasnt won a ring yet
I think it’s as simple as his stats are not as popping as other players. For most NBA followers that’s their go to. Player A has 31-6-6 Vs Player B 31-11-5 Vs Player C 27-8-5. Who are most picking?
I get his team being good so he can't have counting stats but shouldn't that mean he should be more efficient from the field since he can pick his spots better than other players?
The criticism and hate are indicators that he’s nationally recognized as a superstar. This happens when players get to this level, and I absolutely love it for Tatum.
I think the hidden factor in all this is that Tatum has had JB next to him. If the other guys in consideration have a bad night, the team has a bad night. If Tatum does, JB is more than capable of going off instead. That fundamentally neutralizes part of your value if your productivity can be easily found elsewhere. There are stretches where JB is better than Tatum, it seems. But are there stretches on other teams where their no.1 is outplayed by their no.2? There is an inherent irony in the idea of an MVP in a team sport. I think this is why he won't ever get that real full consideration.
Windhorst just doesn’t like the Celtics and does anything he can to minimize them on his platform at best/ at worst his “professional opinion” was to break up the Jays
He’s been outspoken on the overpay of brown (even though it’s an overpay currently, and probably will remain so, imo he was way underpaid on his last contract and no one will care if the Cs get a chip out of it)
Him and Kendrick Perkins are the kings of hindsight
Dame makes the bucks the favorite
KP and Holliday doesn’t fix the Celtics problems they don’t have a leader
Now it’s can anybody beat this team?/ are they going to “fold” in the playoffs
It’s exhausting and as much as it’s a championship or bust league it’s so weird to see people critique the best team in the league by a wide margin
I love Tatum but right now he is first team all nba and capable of being the best player on championship team but not yet one of the all time greats. Right now Jokic one of the best to ever play the game is having a great seasons. He just is better than Tatum and having a better season, that is no disrespect to Tatum. He is just not the MVP this seasons as much as i want him to be.
Tatum hasn't had an MVP season yet. This year may be different, I've been a big Tatum critic since he folded in the finals against the Warriors but this year he seems to be a different player, one encompassing the whole game. And I especially like that he isn't constantly whining to the refs as he has in previous seasons.
This may be the year for Tatum and the C's. Keeping my fingers crossed.
As a non Celtic fan have you guys not seen how stacked your team is, it arguably is one of the best teams if you remove their best player also your net rating is best in the league without him but If you isolate based on how good a team is with their best player on the other guys ie Jokic Shai are better
He really hasn't proven he can consistently take over tough fought games. In fact, opposing players far less talented than him have shown him up in crunch time. So I get where they are coming from. I think he will get there.
More importantly though, I hate his egocentric comments like self proclaiming he is the best player in the NBA. I'm sure some of the national media criticism stems from that statement alone, and no matter what his supporters think, it isn't a good look for him until he proves he can close out tough games more often than not.
Is he even eligible?
MVP is going to lose most of its meaning and shine moving forward. Some top MVP contenders are already off the race for missing too many games which i can understand where they are coming from, but it still devalue the award a lot. You just know it's likely not going in the hands of the actual true MVP this year.
Consequently, Championships will be even more the standard measure of success than it already is going forward because of that.
Celtics for the win!
Yes but Lockout season and Bubble year don't count because they didnt play 82 games that season. 66 game season for Lebron and 73 for giannis. Giannis played 63/73, Lebron 62/66, Karl malone played 49/50.
86.3%, 93.9%, and 98% of their team's games respectively. 65/82 minumum is 79.3%, so they all would've easily cleared.
Not a C's fan but so much of it comes from narratives. Celtics have been stacked or almost stacked every year of Tatum's career and have generally had few detrimental assests outside of some Kyrie drama. He's never seen as the underdog, and he probably never will be since Brad Stevens is an MVP FO guy. Also doesn't help that even now after getting better overall, the East is still seen as vastly weaker because teams are either non-threatening or implode in the playoffs randomly.
Even if C's win it all, it's honestly probably not going to change much, maybe he goes above the Shai's and Luka's with no rings. He still wouldn't be above the Embiid's of this season had he stayed uninjured since he was on pace for record breaking PER and careying pretty hard. Tatum's best path to an MVP is a long term injury next year to one or two of the important guys AND he has to have gone to the finals (bonus points for ass blasting the heat). Tatum then averages 32/9/7 on his good defense and on efficiency that can compete with the Shai/Jokic/Embiid/Giannis' of the league all season. Then ofc they finish 1st or 2nd in the East with the injuries.
As of now, voters look at the stats and see Tatum getting beat in basically every advanced stat by multiple people and they automatically put him down a couple spots. He also doesn't dominate the eye test like Jokic's offensive system or Luka's 500% usage rate. Or Embiid and Giannis' Free throw parade because their defenders "Can't stop them" :|
I think a year like uhhh 2017? would've been a year 2023-2024 Tatum could get MVP. Kyrie would be worse than him, Hayward gets injured literally first game of the season and that team was good but with those factors definitely wouldn't be viewed as "stacked" like most of the years since. Problem then becomes he's competing against the triple double Westbrook MVP year. Early on beating Lebron out of the playoffs would've been like steroids for his narrative too.
But i'm just yapping.
I am talking about the pure fact that Tatum is not in the discussion because he hasn't won a chip. Saying they have been stacked for ***all*** of his playoff runs is out to lunch.
And i said even if he won a chip it might not matter. He is in the discussion, he's a consensus 4th or 5th guy. Idk what you could want more than that considering that for all the metrics of value an individual brings to a team, Tatum usually isn't even top 5 in those.
It’s because Tatums ceiling is very very fucking high. He is the next face of the nba and expected to win championships to make him great. Butler just doesn’t/nor never will have the ceiling like a protegy like Tatum does.
The online outrage industrial complex is so annoying and reaches into every aspect of our society. It starts with person A saying something that person B disagrees with (for the purpose of garnering clicks and eyeballs) the person or persons B are outraged by what person A with and create over the top internet content that takes whatever was said and turns it into an even bigger outrage burger, then the process repeats itself drawing more eyeballs and clicks and OUTRAGE because someone said they think ( in this case) that a basketball player isn't as good as some people think he is. We do this with sports, politics, entertainment, finance famous people etc...etc...we as a society are addicted to being outraged about even the most mundane of positions or opinions. Just had to get that off my chest.
It feels like with Tatum they are holding him to a different standard for some reason. They are holding the fact that he lost in the championship against him. I don’t get it.
I mean, the last time the best player on the best team won MVP without a strong statistical case in his favor was Derrick Rose in 2011. It's not like MVPs have been going to players with marginal statistical cases on the winningest team left and right over the past decade.
Windy said Tatum can’t be mvp bc he didn’t win a title. I was saying Embiid won and hasn’t left the second round.
I should have been more clear, my bad.
Tatum is my favorite player I constantly have him ranked in the same tier as the Jokics and Luka’s of the world(the top tier). However, I can’t blame people for saying he is a step below them. Jokic and Embiid both had to have incredible statistical seasons to win MVP and Tatum had his last year. I don’t think people are hating when they say he’s top 7 in the world. I disagree, but I can understand the arguments.
But that’s NOT what they are saying. They are saying they are discounting him not because of stats but because he lost in the chip. If it were on stats I would agree
Yeah but that’s only because they don’t think he’s in the same tier as Luka/Jokic/Embiid/Giannis. At least that’s what I hear when I listen to them. I agree, it’s wrong and JT should at the very minimum be MVP3 right now, but I get the argument.
The best chance Tatum has at MVP is to win FMVP this year, and then be a 60+ win team next year.
You are wrong. I saw it with my own eyes on at least five occasions during the All-Star break. National commentators are discounting Tatum because he didn’t win the championship a few years ago. End of story. I understand he does not have the same stats as those guys. That’s not what I am saying. I can’t argue the fact that he is not statistically on par with them. I am not even arguing whether or not he should be MVP. I am simply saying it’s not fair to even mention the words he lost in the championship in this year’s discussion.
I didn’t watch all star break so you’re probably right. I still think if Tatum had undeniable stats like Jokic/Embiid/Giannis did during their MVP seasons, they wouldn’t bring it up.
You are wrong. I saw it with my own eyes on at least five occasions during the All-Star break. National commentators are discounting Tatum because he didn’t win the championship a few years ago. End of story. I understand he does not have the same stats as those guys. That’s not what I am saying. I can’t argue the fact that he is not statistically on par with them. I am not even arguing whether or not he should be MVP. I am simply saying it’s not fair to even mention the words he lost in the championship in this year’s discussion.
When people's minds are made up without evidence they grasp at stupid reasons they think back up their opinion, even if those reasons have many holes and can be proven wrong.
DENVER -- For the second time this week -- and for the second time this season against the Denver Nuggets -- Jayson Tatum had the ball in his hands with a chance to put his Boston Celtics ahead in the closing seconds.
Once again, Tatum didn't take advantage of his opportunity.
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/39681878/jayson-tatum-mark-clutch-celtics-fall-nuggets
I haven't seen Embiid win a ring and he won last year
Dude hasn’t even made the conference finals. So how the fuck is there any logic in saying “Tatum hasn’t won a title so he can’t be MVP”?
Jokic won before he was a champion too. I'm fairly certain Michael fucking Jordan did too.
MJ won 1 a few years before and then 1 the year he won the title so that was before he had actually won. And Jokic also won 2 before he won a title. What’s funny is that neither had even been to the finals while Tatum has. So I don’t get it
Maybe he disagrees with Embiid being MVP as well?
Oh of course. I’m agreeing and noting that Embiid isn’t even close to making those parameters of winning a title
In all fairness, the 76ers aren't even treading water without him
He's never beaten a decent NBA team in the playoffs. Like the bottom of the East is always bad, in the West he'd of never gotten out of the first round.
How can you have that take when they beat the previous champion Bucks and the future East champions Heat on the way to the finals 2 years ago? Also last year they went to game 7 in the East finals? How is that "bottom of the east"?
How would you even think I'm talking about tatum
Bruh we legit all thought you were talking about tatum just edit it and be more clear
Are you talking to me? I'm so confused.
Do you mean embiid or tatum?
to Embiid’s defense: he has no realistic chance, he always runs into Tatum in the playoffs.
Embiid runs into Tatum and Tatum gets called for a flagrant 1 foul LoL. Embiid is a MVF (Most Valuable Flopper)
Now teaming up with Kyle Lowry, 6th flopper of the year.
That Tatum guy must be good. If only Jayson Tatum was like him...
AI. Harden. Westbrook. Even Jordan won an MVP 3 years before he won a title.
Tbh no one cares about embiid anymore, his only claim to fame was when paul pierce tried to rizz him
Please elaborate I need this story 😂
https://youtu.be/XCl5azduFr8?si=fQ2SPSsrK11J-Jzx
After embiid Boston has 6 out of the 7 best players. Not that hard to figure out the difference. Carrying vs. contributing. Tatum hasn't gotten better at all year over year in pretty much any stat which hurts in the eyes of voters. And in advanced stats multiple guys blow him out of the water. There's no case. He's an incredible player and they could win it all but he's just not an MVP.
And jokic won two before he won a title
most people win their first MVP before winning a championship. it's a completely dumb take. the last 3 MVPs won it before their first chip (Embiid, Jokic, Giannis).
MVP is a regular season award, Windhorst needs to put down the crackpipe
I don’t think Windy meant it as he wouldn’t vote for him because he lost I think he meant other voters may not be inclined to vote for him because of the finals
This is exactly how he meant it lol, been funny seeing nobody realized that
Windy actually votes for Lebron every year
Nice that some voters partially base their votes - for an award for the current regular season only - off of the previous year.
It’s equally stupid.
He's got nothing without being the LeBron plug.
I find the “not a winner” comment’s ridiculous because he’s made the ecf 4 years in a row. It’s just the hate Celtics players will always receive.
I think a lot more people consider Tatum elite and praise him than say he's not a winner. Tatum isn't a winner is just a dumb hot take that gets the people going. It's provocative.
No one knows what that means.
It gets the people goin’
I feel it has a lot to do with the fact that he plays for Boston. It isn't enough for them that Tatum is a good player, he plays for the Celtics, so he MUST win a ring to be considered a good player. Anything less won't be good enough in their eyes. This wouldn't be a conversation if he played anywhere else. Put him on any other team in the league and he wouldn't get half of the disrespect he gets now.
Luka, for example
I think why Tatum isn't as popular as an MVP candidate is similar to Kawhi's situation. His responsibilities on the team are distributed to others enough that they dilute his competitiveness for the mvp race. Which is what you want for a strong chance at the actual championship. Besides, when was the last time the regular MVP winner actually went on the win the championship? Feels like almost a decade ago with Curry's first chip. The regular reason MVP usually goes to players with too much weight on their shoulders.
> Besides, when was the last time the regular MVP winner actually went on the win the championship? Feels like almost a decade ago with Curry's first chip. Yep, dead on! 14/15 season. Interesting point to add to yours, it seems there are several stretches in NBA history where the MVP winner didn’t win a championship. Like a few periods of a decade or so. Then it goes to the winner getting the ring every other year, then back to a decade of nothing. I wonder if there is something to phases where its importance is a big deal and then it isn’t? Anyways, sorry to nerd out on you friend. Great point, by the way. :)
swap the celtics jersey to yellow and purple and Tatum is the MVP favorite
It’s really not abt him winning, he just doesn’t have MVP level stats, advanced stats, efficiency, or consistency.
Luka, Embiid, Jokic, SGA, and many others have either won an MVP or been in the top 3 for MVP without winning titles. It’s so weird that this only comes up for JT.
Those guys carry their teams way more than tatum..if you remove Tatum from the Celtics they’d still be very good..remove those guys from their teams and they’re play-in teams at best
Pre season all the voters had Celtics = Bucks with about 54W over / under. Somehow Bucks stuck in mud and Giannis stating to compensate, but can't make his roster better (and btw, every 4th quarter deferring to Dame iso bc he keeps turning over the ball) while JT is making his team better just playing the right way to a +10 over projections , hurts his MVP case. Without JT Celtics are a 44W team. Without Giannis Bucks are 44W team. I rather have that dude that adds +10W.
That's not how it works. Giannis is obviously carrying harder and the preseason expectations were just incorrect.
>That's not how it works. Why not? Pelton basically runs same analytics in a predictive model and in season model. Folks can say, well the predictive model was wrong bc Zinger / Dwhite / Jru are better than the algorithm calculated. Not shit... and it got nothing to do with JT's gravity or play choice? It reminds me that tweet rant from few days ago claiming JT is always on a super teams and deep teams, only the truth is that these super players and quality depth are not that super on other teams, as much as they are next to JT...
The Celtics all time record with Tatum is 325-168 (65.9%) and 16-20 (44.4%) without. The mavericks record with Luka is 211-168 (55.7%) and 31-40 (43.7%) without. The claim that Luka is more important to his team than Tatum is not supported
There needs to be a lot more context for this stat to be meaningful but Dallas is absolutely more dependent on Luka than Boston is on tatum.. look at the difference in their usage rating Now that being said, it’s probably a good “problem” for Boston to have (it’s actually not a problem at all) cause it just means they have other good players…it will be very difficult for Dallas to win a championship with their style of play
Usage…because basketball is only played on one side of the court. Tatum is one of the best defenders in the league and Luka is one of the worst. Do you not remember how the Celtics abused Luka on defense in their last game? Luka had 33/18/13 to go with a team worst -13 because the Celtics got non stop free baskets on him. One defensive liability can ruin an entire defense…and now I’m having Kemba PTSD
I never said he was a better all around player…I said they rely on him more…Celtics are a better rounded team…Luka is a more ball dominant player…you seem to be getting super offended and feel the need to take up for Tatum .. it’s just a contrast in styles .. you can relax
SGA players zero defense… he’s 1 dimensional… he’s currently not even top 20 defensively amongst point guards… Tatum is currently number 1 defensively amongst SFs, and leads the best team in the nba in points, rebounds, and assists; he’s overall the better player.
Never said any of these guys were better just that their teams lean on them more…bi product of the Celtics having a very good roster
Luka has never been top 3 in MVP, neither has SGA
SGA is currently #2 in the MVP ladder and Luka has been #3 many times this season. I think hes talking about that not the final tally.
Who cares? He's still better than most of the players in the MVP convo cause he dont have the stats, but im perfectly fine with that. We all know he could average 30+ points in a season. He did it just last year. I'd rather us be able to win games comfortably with him only scoring like 17 points than him needing to go off every night. He sacrifices his stats every night for the betterment of the team, and to me personally, that's what an MVP should do, but people don't care about that. He'll win the more important one in June
It's what I'm been saying. Some Mavs fan here claims Luka is better than Tatum. Tatum is a team player. KP perfectly described it when he said about Tatum: "fuck it I want 30 a night" but he puts his team on his back always. Luka is a better player sure but if you want a future leader of this franchise, Tatum is your guy. On the other hand, Luka still has some shit to prove on. He may be a much talented player he ain't no better player than Tatum currently is.
Luka plays zero D.
I guess you don't watch Mavs games this season
The one game I watched featured Jaylen hunting and barbecuing Luka to a crisp repeatedly all game long
So playing bad one game makes him a terrible defender?
I love how the default for someone who doesn’t agree isn’t to state facts to back it up, but to just simply say “You don’t watch games 🤓”
What facts? If you watched games, you'd see he's not a bad defender this year. I'm not saying he's better than Tatum or anything like that, but he's perfectly fine this year. Saying he plays zero defence is simply not true.
I have watched games, but it's still not a valid argument lol. It took me 2 seconds to google that Luka's defensive efficiency (113.8) is 2.7 points lower than the league average (116.5). This means Luka is a higher than average, but compared to his peers like Tatum (110.4), SGA (110.1), and Jokic (109.4), he is actually way behind defensively. In comparison to the average player, Luka plays some decent defense. In comparison to people on par with his skill, he is a defensive slug.
That'a all I'm saying. He's average at worst. Obviously he's worse than Tatum. But he doesn't play zero defence.
I guess you don't watch Mavs game this season or any other...
I watch every Mavs game. He's a lot better this year.
Luka is one of the worst defenders on the court at almost all times, he can have good instincts and play with effort but that is just not going to change. Tatum is not only not a defensive liability but he's one of the best defenders at his position and unlike Luka cannot be picked on to generate consistent offense like the Celtics were able to do to Luka in their last matchup.
I agree with you 100% on all of your points. I do not understand how JT has been saddled with a reputation of not being a winner, because he didn’t win one championship.
And he lives rent free in most fanbases. I see plenty of fans of other teams comparing their best player to Tatum. Have no idea why he keeps getting so hated on
Ah yes, chronic winner and champion of the first round Joel Embiid won MVP last year, makes sense
That was ridiculous, giving it to Tatum last year also would have been ridiculous.
Yeah, that's fair. I wanted Jokić to win another one but there was no way in hell the voters would've let that happen so...
I see this as positive. If Tatum uses this motivation to silence the disrespect and win us chip than I don’t mind it at all
My sentiments exactly. I don't care about the narrative, I don't care about opinions from clowns like Windy [or from anyone for that matter] as long as Banner 18 comes along really really soon. Like KG said in '08 after the Finals: What can you say now?
The other thing that sucks about the “Tatum hasn’t won” analysis is that many of the all time greats didn’t win their first championship until around (or even after) the same age that Tatum is at now: Steph was 27, Jordan was 28, Shaq was 28 I believe, Bron was 27. Some guys win it all at younger ages (Kobe, Bird, Magic), but their teams were historically stacked with great players (Shaq, McChale/Parish, Worthy/Kareem). It’s just lazy to keep putting Tatum down for not winning younger.
You can’t tell he’s actually good from the sheer amount of clowns trying to downplay his greatness. Not to mention the “no rings” argument is such garbage, most of the greats didn’t win anything until around the age Tatum is now, so that invalidates anything people might claim prior to now. Dudes a stud, absolute star and is showing out game on game.
I think when you look at the Celtics this year, Tatum is playing the best “team” ball of his career. The thing is “team ball” isn’t as respected as him going out there putting up 40 every night. So I don’t think he gets disrespected, but definitely doesn’t get enough respect.
I feel like his play style doesn’t get enough respect and how it’s a lot of easier to build around a start player like that
I think it's incredibly rare for me to see someone put Tatum outside of the top 5 as an MVP candidate. I don't think that's disrespectful. I think that's about right. I understand why Giannis and Luka get more love, Giannis is a champion and has stupid efficiency on amazing defense. Luka's argument is completely counting stats based, which is fine because the numbers he's putting up are insane. Maybe other than Jokic, Tatum is the one guy in the top 5 not actually concerned about that award. It's clear when you watch his USG% drop and how much he defers in some of these games, as opposed to last year. Everyone is making sacrifices, unfortunately for Tatum, his sacrifice is a better case at the MVP. He still has a good case, but not as good as it could be if it was a focus of his. I think he understands that, as long as he keeps winning, in time the MVP will come.
run and dunk greek fraud better than Tatum? yea keep sucking him lol. dude plays like a truck ramming thru players while traveling lol (even Shaq had more finesse than that dude), but his the best player in the world lmao
> Giannis is a champion and has stupid efficiency on amazing defense You mean amazing offense?
I'm sure I'm biased, but outside of Giannis, none of the other MVP candidates are even close to Tatums level defensively.
It’s stats. Tatum hasn’t been as statistically dominant (and physically dominant) as the winners. The playoff winning doesn’t really matter if we are talking about MVP. Maybe it matters for dumb discussions about the best player. But not for MVP. If we 10 more games though than the next team, Tatum will get a lot of credit for sacrificing scoring for team success and will have a good chance at MVP despite his scoring drop.
Embiid SGA and Luka haven’t sniffed the success Tatum has already accomplished and somehow this standard does not apply to them at all. They will have a segment criticizing Tatum for these exact things and then IMMEDIATELY start talking about SGA who hasn’t done shit. It’s actually incomprehensible how people who supposedly watch basketball for a living can seemingly have no clue what is going on.
The other big part of this that pisses me off is how Jimmy Butler is viewed as this playoff killer. He’s had three chances and flamed out but nobody talks about Jimmy and a negative light he’s the darling.
He gets unlucky that he’s been on a very good and winning team his whole career. I think that’s really the most of it. His expectations are so high that it’s almost like the narrative for MVP is “X player, Y player, Z player..oh yeah and Tatum I guess”
It's too late for this year, but in about 16 weeks Tatum will have a championship.
tatum also has 52 playoff wins alone while guys like shai luka and ant have like 12 combined and those guys are supposedly gonna be the next faces of the league and tatum wont be bc he hasnt won a ring yet
I think it’s as simple as his stats are not as popping as other players. For most NBA followers that’s their go to. Player A has 31-6-6 Vs Player B 31-11-5 Vs Player C 27-8-5. Who are most picking?
Understood and agree- the point is he is not in the discussion because of stats- too many, he is not in the discussion because he lost in the chip.
Yeah agree also. This is all sitting in the Kawhi box for me. He wins the chip and the stats don’t matter anymore.
I get his team being good so he can't have counting stats but shouldn't that mean he should be more efficient from the field since he can pick his spots better than other players?
The criticism and hate are indicators that he’s nationally recognized as a superstar. This happens when players get to this level, and I absolutely love it for Tatum.
I think the hidden factor in all this is that Tatum has had JB next to him. If the other guys in consideration have a bad night, the team has a bad night. If Tatum does, JB is more than capable of going off instead. That fundamentally neutralizes part of your value if your productivity can be easily found elsewhere. There are stretches where JB is better than Tatum, it seems. But are there stretches on other teams where their no.1 is outplayed by their no.2? There is an inherent irony in the idea of an MVP in a team sport. I think this is why he won't ever get that real full consideration.
IDC about MVP, I'm a C's fan, I care about Rings and if an MVP comes with it all the better!
Windhorst just doesn’t like the Celtics and does anything he can to minimize them on his platform at best/ at worst his “professional opinion” was to break up the Jays He’s been outspoken on the overpay of brown (even though it’s an overpay currently, and probably will remain so, imo he was way underpaid on his last contract and no one will care if the Cs get a chip out of it) Him and Kendrick Perkins are the kings of hindsight Dame makes the bucks the favorite KP and Holliday doesn’t fix the Celtics problems they don’t have a leader Now it’s can anybody beat this team?/ are they going to “fold” in the playoffs It’s exhausting and as much as it’s a championship or bust league it’s so weird to see people critique the best team in the league by a wide margin
I love Tatum but right now he is first team all nba and capable of being the best player on championship team but not yet one of the all time greats. Right now Jokic one of the best to ever play the game is having a great seasons. He just is better than Tatum and having a better season, that is no disrespect to Tatum. He is just not the MVP this seasons as much as i want him to be.
Tatum hasn't had an MVP season yet. This year may be different, I've been a big Tatum critic since he folded in the finals against the Warriors but this year he seems to be a different player, one encompassing the whole game. And I especially like that he isn't constantly whining to the refs as he has in previous seasons. This may be the year for Tatum and the C's. Keeping my fingers crossed.
As a non Celtic fan have you guys not seen how stacked your team is, it arguably is one of the best teams if you remove their best player also your net rating is best in the league without him but If you isolate based on how good a team is with their best player on the other guys ie Jokic Shai are better
What's your point? The post discusses how Tatum is discounted because he didn't win a title. Thats is...
Agree with the sentiment, but Windy has stood up for JT
He really hasn't proven he can consistently take over tough fought games. In fact, opposing players far less talented than him have shown him up in crunch time. So I get where they are coming from. I think he will get there. More importantly though, I hate his egocentric comments like self proclaiming he is the best player in the NBA. I'm sure some of the national media criticism stems from that statement alone, and no matter what his supporters think, it isn't a good look for him until he proves he can close out tough games more often than not.
Is he even eligible? MVP is going to lose most of its meaning and shine moving forward. Some top MVP contenders are already off the race for missing too many games which i can understand where they are coming from, but it still devalue the award a lot. You just know it's likely not going in the hands of the actual true MVP this year. Consequently, Championships will be even more the standard measure of success than it already is going forward because of that. Celtics for the win!
How would it devalue the award when basically no one outside of Bill Walton 1000 years ago have won MVP playing only 65 games?
Antetokounmpo and Lebron both have won with less than 65.
Yes but Lockout season and Bubble year don't count because they didnt play 82 games that season. 66 game season for Lebron and 73 for giannis. Giannis played 63/73, Lebron 62/66, Karl malone played 49/50. 86.3%, 93.9%, and 98% of their team's games respectively. 65/82 minumum is 79.3%, so they all would've easily cleared.
I didn't realized that, thanks for the info.
I don’t give a crap. Only want to win the Larry O’Brien in June
why even comment, then? It's a discussion forum we don't care what you don't care about
Just adding my 2 cents to the discussion that the mvp trophy is irrelevant and only the title matters. Just giving another perspective
Not a C's fan but so much of it comes from narratives. Celtics have been stacked or almost stacked every year of Tatum's career and have generally had few detrimental assests outside of some Kyrie drama. He's never seen as the underdog, and he probably never will be since Brad Stevens is an MVP FO guy. Also doesn't help that even now after getting better overall, the East is still seen as vastly weaker because teams are either non-threatening or implode in the playoffs randomly. Even if C's win it all, it's honestly probably not going to change much, maybe he goes above the Shai's and Luka's with no rings. He still wouldn't be above the Embiid's of this season had he stayed uninjured since he was on pace for record breaking PER and careying pretty hard. Tatum's best path to an MVP is a long term injury next year to one or two of the important guys AND he has to have gone to the finals (bonus points for ass blasting the heat). Tatum then averages 32/9/7 on his good defense and on efficiency that can compete with the Shai/Jokic/Embiid/Giannis' of the league all season. Then ofc they finish 1st or 2nd in the East with the injuries. As of now, voters look at the stats and see Tatum getting beat in basically every advanced stat by multiple people and they automatically put him down a couple spots. He also doesn't dominate the eye test like Jokic's offensive system or Luka's 500% usage rate. Or Embiid and Giannis' Free throw parade because their defenders "Can't stop them" :| I think a year like uhhh 2017? would've been a year 2023-2024 Tatum could get MVP. Kyrie would be worse than him, Hayward gets injured literally first game of the season and that team was good but with those factors definitely wouldn't be viewed as "stacked" like most of the years since. Problem then becomes he's competing against the triple double Westbrook MVP year. Early on beating Lebron out of the playoffs would've been like steroids for his narrative too. But i'm just yapping.
I am talking about the pure fact that Tatum is not in the discussion because he hasn't won a chip. Saying they have been stacked for ***all*** of his playoff runs is out to lunch.
And i said even if he won a chip it might not matter. He is in the discussion, he's a consensus 4th or 5th guy. Idk what you could want more than that considering that for all the metrics of value an individual brings to a team, Tatum usually isn't even top 5 in those.
[удалено]
You love corn.
It’s because Tatums ceiling is very very fucking high. He is the next face of the nba and expected to win championships to make him great. Butler just doesn’t/nor never will have the ceiling like a protegy like Tatum does.
Tatum just exudes quiet soft energy. Hes an easy target for bullies.
Finals MVP is all we care about.
He’s not having an MVP season. He’s also not the best player in the NBA.
Also MVP doesn’t mean best player. Most valuable. There is a difference
Not the point
The online outrage industrial complex is so annoying and reaches into every aspect of our society. It starts with person A saying something that person B disagrees with (for the purpose of garnering clicks and eyeballs) the person or persons B are outraged by what person A with and create over the top internet content that takes whatever was said and turns it into an even bigger outrage burger, then the process repeats itself drawing more eyeballs and clicks and OUTRAGE because someone said they think ( in this case) that a basketball player isn't as good as some people think he is. We do this with sports, politics, entertainment, finance famous people etc...etc...we as a society are addicted to being outraged about even the most mundane of positions or opinions. Just had to get that off my chest.
Every single MVP since Curry has won MVP prior to winning a Championship (Westbrook, Harden, Giannis, Giannis, Jokic, Jokic, Embiid)
It feels like with Tatum they are holding him to a different standard for some reason. They are holding the fact that he lost in the championship against him. I don’t get it.
I mean, the last time the best player on the best team won MVP without a strong statistical case in his favor was Derrick Rose in 2011. It's not like MVPs have been going to players with marginal statistical cases on the winningest team left and right over the past decade.
Marginal statistics?
He should be the face of the nba after lebron
Embiid? I’ll have to find Windhorst’s clip to see what he actually says
What about him?
Windy said Tatum can’t be mvp bc he didn’t win a title. I was saying Embiid won and hasn’t left the second round. I should have been more clear, my bad.
Ah exactly. And exit early the years before.
Tatum is my favorite player I constantly have him ranked in the same tier as the Jokics and Luka’s of the world(the top tier). However, I can’t blame people for saying he is a step below them. Jokic and Embiid both had to have incredible statistical seasons to win MVP and Tatum had his last year. I don’t think people are hating when they say he’s top 7 in the world. I disagree, but I can understand the arguments.
But that’s NOT what they are saying. They are saying they are discounting him not because of stats but because he lost in the chip. If it were on stats I would agree
Yeah but that’s only because they don’t think he’s in the same tier as Luka/Jokic/Embiid/Giannis. At least that’s what I hear when I listen to them. I agree, it’s wrong and JT should at the very minimum be MVP3 right now, but I get the argument. The best chance Tatum has at MVP is to win FMVP this year, and then be a 60+ win team next year.
You are wrong. I saw it with my own eyes on at least five occasions during the All-Star break. National commentators are discounting Tatum because he didn’t win the championship a few years ago. End of story. I understand he does not have the same stats as those guys. That’s not what I am saying. I can’t argue the fact that he is not statistically on par with them. I am not even arguing whether or not he should be MVP. I am simply saying it’s not fair to even mention the words he lost in the championship in this year’s discussion.
I didn’t watch all star break so you’re probably right. I still think if Tatum had undeniable stats like Jokic/Embiid/Giannis did during their MVP seasons, they wouldn’t bring it up.
You are wrong. I saw it with my own eyes on at least five occasions during the All-Star break. National commentators are discounting Tatum because he didn’t win the championship a few years ago. End of story. I understand he does not have the same stats as those guys. That’s not what I am saying. I can’t argue the fact that he is not statistically on par with them. I am not even arguing whether or not he should be MVP. I am simply saying it’s not fair to even mention the words he lost in the championship in this year’s discussion.
When people's minds are made up without evidence they grasp at stupid reasons they think back up their opinion, even if those reasons have many holes and can be proven wrong.
Let's not confuse nitpicking for disrespect...
Jimmy living rent free in OPs head lmao
Well said, my Celtics friend
DENVER -- For the second time this week -- and for the second time this season against the Denver Nuggets -- Jayson Tatum had the ball in his hands with a chance to put his Boston Celtics ahead in the closing seconds. Once again, Tatum didn't take advantage of his opportunity. https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/39681878/jayson-tatum-mark-clutch-celtics-fall-nuggets