RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #94 (Jayson Tatum)

[OldSchoolNoBull]

Just for a few counterpoints, as well as points of clarification.....

Not far behind Hagan in longevity is Gus Williams (11 years, though again probably only about a 5-year prime [though fwiw one year in middle of prime sat out due to contract dispute]; was a useful player for 10 of those years [and fwiw averaging [basically] 30 mpg or more in EIGHT of them]). He too has some hardware as a starter putting up major numbers. Gus did this in a substantially more competitive league environment, imo. And I will credit him with being a very consistent playoff performer.
His raw WOWY doesn't look so hot, though his WOWYR is actually REALLY solid.

Tatum [only one more season than Luka] is not in my top 100 either......but he's closer than the rest. He came into the league a more or less NBA-ready player; was solidly an All-Star by his third year, has been the apparent best player on a contender level team for a couple years at least. His impact signals are super-strong (ABOVE what his box-based aggragates suggest), which is perhaps not surprising given his versatile defensive acumen.

So as this seems to be coming down to Tatum and Williams, and as there are still some voters who haven't voted yet, and as of the ones that have already voted for Tatum, you seem like the one that might be flip-able(given your lack of enthusiasm for the whole ballot), I just want to put forth the following head-to-head argument for you and anyone else who hasn't voted yet.

First, a look at their WOWY W/L:

Tatum(Celtics tenure not including this season, 17-18->22-23)
With: 282-157 .642
Without: 14-19 .424
21.8% winning percentage gap

Williams(Sonics tenure, 77-78->83-84)
With: 290-187 .608
Without: 41-56 .423
18.5% winning percentage gap

So, Tatum does have the edge, but both look outstanding in this regard, and I would also note that Williams is the only player on the ballot that comes anywhere close to Tatum in this regard(the next highest is Luka at about an 11.9% winning percentage gap). So while Tatum has the edge, keep the closeness in mind as I present some other advantages for Williams.

I guess; technically.
Though one needs to use '81 [where Gus missed the whole year] to arrive at those figures for him.......and I can't say I'm 100% on-board with doing so. It wasn't just Gus they lost in '81: they also ditched Dennis Johnson, and [basically] lost starting PF Lonnie Shelton to injury for the whole year. So Gus is one of THREE starters they lost in '81; and a 4th starter (SF John Johnson) was also aging out of effectiveness by '81. And in '82, Gus was one of TWO starters coming back (along with Lonnie Shelton).

So it's pretty dicey to chalk up the big dip in '81 to Gus not being there, because there's a fair bit of mud in the water.

And if we remove '81 from consideration, the Sonics were 7-8 [.467] without him. It's still a very respectable +14.1% to the win% in Seattle; just not quite as impressive. And then it's soured a bit further if we use his full career including his non-prime seasons [as you did for Tatum], because in every single season where he missed time outside of Seattle, his team had a better record without him.
His career totals [NOT counting '81 in the without sample]: 482-343 [.584] with, 56-21 [.727] without (for a -14.3% effect).
To be fair, most of that^^^ without sample comes from his final season with a very good Atlanta Hawks team, and perhaps it's not fair to base so much off of that. But even excluding '87 it's: 18-10 [.643] without him (for a -5.9% effect).

So I don't think raw WOWY is as supportive as you think it is. That said (and I mentioned this in the quoted portion), his WOWYR is very solid.

But as you alluded to, the Sonics bounced right back when Williams came back, without DJ. If you really think Shelton was that impactful, ok, but I think it far more likely that Williams was most responsible, see as he showed positive impact on every arrival/departure in his career. Like, when he left Seattle in 1984, they dropped 5.1 SRS points and 5.3 Net Rtg points with no other changes in the starting lineup and no coaching changes.

Maybe I am too gung-ho about his impact but I think you are minimizing it.

Longevity

Williams has a big longevity edge, of nearly 11K total minutes. How much this matters varies from voter to voter, but trex claims longevity matters a lot to him, so.

Williams: 25,645 total minutes
Tatum: 14,916 total minutes(through 22-23)

To be clear, I've always said MEANINGFUL longevity is important within my criteria. Seasons/minutes played as basically a replacement-level player [or worse] do not move the needle AT ALL within my criteria; and seasons as a more or less an average player only barely move the needle.
So the 481 minutes in Gus's final season are completely irrelevant to my criteria, and the 4,214 minutes ['77 and '86] are nearly irrelevant.

And the ones that move the needle the most are the higher level [prime] seasons. But as mentioned: Gus's prime is rather short (like generously perhaps six seasons might be called his "extended prime": '78-'80, '82-'84). Looking at only that vs what might be called Tatum's extended prime (let's say '20-'23)......

Williams: 16,262 total minutes [63.4% of his career total]
Tatum: 10,018 total minutes [67.2% of his career total]

So Tatum has a slightly higher proportion of his minutes in the "big mover" years, and he doesn't have ANY seasons which are completely irrelevant to me. Additionally, it's worth pointing out that '20 and '21 [two PRIME seasons] were shortened by the pandemic. Pro-rating his minutes in those years to a full season would add 633 to his prime/career totals, fwiw.


So yes, a longevity edge to Gus exists; it's just not quite as large as you have implied.

I'm not sure his rookie year - 75-76 - should be discounted. The team, though the defending champs, took a big jump in SRS and Net with Gus playing ~20mpg, the only other significant change being Phil Smith getting a bigger role, and they got within a game of the Finals, losing the last two games of a seven games series after Gus went out with injury. That's another 1728 minutes.

WRT to the pro-rating for pandemic seasons - yes, If he played every game, but he's missed 8, 8, and 6 games the last three years, so it would be a little less than that.

And fwiw, this is mitigated to some degree by era discrepancy. I am not an era relativist. I believe the era of Tatum's achievement to be notably better than that of Gus's, and that is a factor in my criteria.

Well, that's a big gap we can't bridge. What am I supposed to say to that? When you throw era-relativity to the side, you can literally look at any two comparable players from any two eras, look at the one from the more recent era, and say 'tougher era'. I just can't get on board with that.

It's also worth looking specifically at those Finals performances. I want to say that the part of trex's post I bolded - "He too has some hardware as a starter" - I feel undersells Williams' role on the 79 Sonics. He wasn't just a starter, he was arguably the #1 guy, at worst #1B, as was/is Tatum. That said:

1979 Finals vs 2022 Finals

Williams:
1978: 16.3/4.6r/3.6a/2.0s on 50.3% TS(Bullets held opponents to 50.5% TS in RS, -0.2%)
1979: 29.0/3.6r/3.6a/1.0s on 53.5% TS(Bullets held opponents to 51% TS in RS, +2.5%)
(FYI, Wiliams played 4.6mpg more in 79, so that accounts for some of the volume difference)

This point is a little peculiar, though I don't disagree with anything (more on that below). But it's peculiar because, for starters, by way of exclusion you've sort of misrepresented what I said/implied. Though it's hard to effectively misrepresent my words, however, because they're RIGHT THERE in the quoted portion [just not bolded] (again, more on that below).

You then point out that he wasn't "just a starter", he was arguably the best player or 1B at worst, then going on to cite his production in the Finals.
This is peculiar because it's REALLY close to the exact argument I gave in his favour (just more detailed).

For you see, I did NOT only say he "has some hardware as a starter". I said:

He too has some hardware as a starter putting up major numbers.

.....the numbers you went on to cite.

I'm sorry for being pedantic, but the "as a starter" threw me because you wouldn't say, for example, that Nikola Jokic put up big numbers as a starter. You would say he was the main guy, the #1, the alpha. It felt like you were implying that he wasn't the star of the team. If I'm wrong about that, then I apologize.

Tatum shot horribly in that Finals, and while he did other things at a high level to make up for it, Williams did those things too(defense, playmaking)

Re: defense
I think what Gus did really well on defense is sort of captured in the box aggragates, though: he got steals (PER loves steals, fwiw). That was the biggest value-adding thing he did defensively.

Tatum does a lot of things well defensively that DON'T show up in the box (which I think is a HUGE part of why of all the players who have played in the last 28 seasons, Tatum is sitting #7 in career RAPM (including the playoffs, btw), even though his box aggragates would suggest he's no where NEAR that strong a player.

His length makes him a fantastic shot-contester (even if not getting a block). His length and athleticism make him switchable on to nearly anyone (save maybe a powerful center), and he's generally good at forcing difficult shots. These attributes also help him come up with deflections (even if not getting the steal), or otherwise blow up plays from time to time.

All due respect to Gus Williams, I don't think he's close to being as impactful a defender as Tatum is.

I understand what you're saying, but Gus has a reputation as a solid defender, and I don't know that steals alone can earn that reputation. Iverson racked up more steals than most players in NBA history, but no one ever called him a good defender. Very honestly, I haven't watched enough film of Gus to have a ton of first-hand knowledge about this, but my knee-jerk reaction is to be weary of an "it was just steals" narrative.

while shooting more efficiently. Also worth pointing out that Williams efficiency advantage comes despite him being a 6'2' guy in an era with no three point line going against a frontcourt of Unseld and Hayes while Tatum was a 6'8' guy with a good three-point shot going against a frontcourt that didn't have any real size advantage over him.

fwiw, The "he did it while being shorter" arguments don't hold water with me. Nor would "he did it with less athleticism that the other guy" or whatever. They did what they did (tall, short, fast, slow, who cares). What they did is what matters to me.

I mean, should we be breaking out the Muggsy Bogues nominations? Because based on that type of reasoning, there are few players who did more with their height relative to the league. So why not him?


Anyway, there's some good talking points here, though not much that I haven't already considered. I could be swayed to take Gus over Luka next thread [if Tatum takes this one]; but I'm not sold on him above Tatum.

I guess that's an "agree to disagree" on that, then.

And the Bogues thing...come on...he had some degree of positive impact, but he was nowhere near Williams as far as box stats, primacy, or team accomplishment. No, I'm not going to worry about height when comparing players of clearly different talent/accomplishment levels, but if they're comparable, then I think it's at least worth mentioning.

[trex_8063]

But as you alluded to, the Sonics bounced right back when Williams came back, without DJ. If you really think Shelton was that impactful, ok, but I think it far more likely that Williams was most responsible,

Well, obviously. I wasn't saying Shelton was more responsible, nor even as responsible, for the '82 bounce-back. I thought that was implicit, but perhaps not; I was merely pointing out there's noise here (rather a lot in the '80 to '81 transition). There were other roster changes/losses [even among other starters] that dove-tailed EXACTLY with Gus's missed season.

see as he showed positive impact on every arrival/departure in his career. Like, when he left Seattle in 1984, they dropped 5.1 SRS points and 5.3 Net Rtg points with no other changes in the starting lineup and no coaching changes.

Absolutely the '85 drop-off is telling, and I'm fairly certain that's a BIG part of why his WOWYR looks so good (because it DOES take into account the before/after [not just the with/without]).

Maybe I am too gung-ho about his impact but I think you are minimizing it.

Not trying to minimize, just providing the context you'd omitted (specifically with regards to '81), and also noting that you showed ONLY Williams' Seattle time (all prime) vs ALL of Tatum's career (NOT all prime).
I get it: you're supporting Gus, and thus want to paint him in the most flattering light you can. But for posterity's sake, I'm pointing out some considerations you did not mention. That's it.

Longevity

Williams has a big longevity edge, of nearly 11K total minutes. How much this matters varies from voter to voter, but trex claims longevity matters a lot to him, so.

Williams: 25,645 total minutes
Tatum: 14,916 total minutes(through 22-23)

To be clear, I've always said MEANINGFUL longevity is important within my criteria. Seasons/minutes played as basically a replacement-level player [or worse] do not move the needle AT ALL within my criteria; and seasons as a more or less an average player only barely move the needle.
So the 481 minutes in Gus's final season are completely irrelevant to my criteria, and the 4,214 minutes ['77 and '86] are nearly irrelevant.

And the ones that move the needle the most are the higher level [prime] seasons. But as mentioned: Gus's prime is rather short (like generously perhaps six seasons might be called his "extended prime": '78-'80, '82-'84). Looking at only that vs what might be called Tatum's extended prime (let's say '20-'23)......

Williams: 16,262 total minutes [63.4% of his career total]
Tatum: 10,018 total minutes [67.2% of his career total]

So Tatum has a slightly higher proportion of his minutes in the "big mover" years, and he doesn't have ANY seasons which are completely irrelevant to me. Additionally, it's worth pointing out that '20 and '21 [two PRIME seasons] were shortened by the pandemic. Pro-rating his minutes in those years to a full season would add 633 to his prime/career totals, fwiw.


So yes, a longevity edge to Gus exists; it's just not quite as large as you have implied.

I'm not sure his rookie year - 75-76 - should be discounted. The team, though the defending champs, took a big jump in SRS and Net with Gus playing ~20mpg, the only other significant change being Phil Smith getting a bigger role, and they got within a game of the Finals, losing the last two games of a seven games series after Gus went out with injury. That's another 1728 minutes.

Read again. His rookie season is NOT one of the years I discounted as irrelevant or minimally relevant.

WRT to the pro-rating for pandemic seasons - yes, If he played every game, but he's missed 8, 8, and 6 games the last three years, so it would be a little less than that.

Pro-rating does NOT mean assuming he'd play in all 10 additional games. It's factoring in his durability within those specific seasons.
Mathematically it is:

(82/72) * minutes played in the season

i.e. it basically assumes he only played ~9 [or 8-9] of the 10 additional games, at his usual mpg.

And fwiw, this is mitigated to some degree by era discrepancy. I am not an era relativist. I believe the era of Tatum's achievement to be notably better than that of Gus's, and that is a factor in my criteria.

Well, that's a big gap we can't bridge. What am I supposed to say to that? When you throw era-relativity to the side, you can literally look at any two comparable players from any two eras, look at the one from the more recent era, and say 'tougher era'. I just can't get on board with that.

It may be a bridge too far, and that's fine.

It's not a factor that ALWAYS favours the "tougher era" player in all comparisons, fwiw.
But if we're looking at two guys with similar(ish) level accomplishment, but one occurred in a "tougher era".....yeah, the tougher era guy absolutely gets the nod from me.

Even if I'm looking at one guy with marginally better accomplishment, but in a clearly weaker era......the guy in the tougher era may often get the nod.
otoh, if the impact/achievement/accomplishment of the "weak" era guy is WAAAY ahead of the tough era guy, he may still get the nod [from me] over the more recent "tougher era" guy; even if the tougher era is WAAAY tougher. e.g. I rank [at least as of '23] George Mikan ahead of Kawhi Leonard and Anthony Davis.

I'm sorry for being pedantic, but the "as a starter" threw me because you wouldn't say, for example, that Nikola Jokic put up big numbers as a starter. You would say he was the main guy, the #1, the alpha. It felt like you were implying that he wasn't the star of the team. If I'm wrong about that, then I apologize.

Perhaps my semantic choice of word undersold him. I don't think saying he was the "clear star" or "clear alpha" or the "main guy" is fully accurate either, particularly considering the full season, not just the Finals or even the full playoffs. I mean, Gus averaged just 29.8 mpg in the rs, though his box aggragates are the most impressive on the team; but still, he seems like "the guy" like Chauncey Billups was "the guy" on the '04 Pistons (not like Jokic is "the guy").

Re: defense
I think what Gus did really well on defense is sort of captured in the box aggragates, though: he got steals (PER loves steals, fwiw). That was the biggest value-adding thing he did defensively.

Tatum does a lot of things well defensively that DON'T show up in the box (which I think is a HUGE part of why of all the players who have played in the last 28 seasons, Tatum is sitting #7 in career RAPM (including the playoffs, btw), even though his box aggragates would suggest he's no where NEAR that strong a player.

His length makes him a fantastic shot-contester (even if not getting a block). His length and athleticism make him switchable on to nearly anyone (save maybe a powerful center), and he's generally good at forcing difficult shots. These attributes also help him come up with deflections (even if not getting the steal), or otherwise blow up plays from time to time.

All due respect to Gus Williams, I don't think he's close to being as impactful a defender as Tatum is.

I understand what you're saying, but Gus has a reputation as a solid defender, and I don't know that steals alone can earn that reputation. Iverson racked up more steals than most players in NBA history, but no one ever called him a good defender. Very honestly, I haven't watched enough film of Gus to have a ton of first-hand knowledge about this, but my knee-jerk reaction is to be weary of an "it was just steals" narrative.

Fair point.

I guess that's an "agree to disagree" on that, then.

And the Bogues thing...come on...he had some degree of positive impact, but he was nowhere near Williams as far as box stats, primacy, or team accomplishment. No, I'm not going to worry about height when comparing players of clearly different talent/accomplishment levels, but if they're comparable, then I think it's at least worth mentioning.

Hmm. idk, I think I'd find another means of breaking the tie. That just seems so arbitrary; could just as well be better haircut or skin colour, imo.

[ShaqAttac]

Imma go

LUKA

Best player here easy tbh. should have an mvp

TATUM

Good impact number and leads teams to cfs and finals

Gonna nom

JAMES WORTHY

won a bunch of rings and as oldschool says he was winning games without magic too

GASOL

won a chip anchoring great d and led good teams ig

[Owly]

Imma go

LUKA

Best player here easy tbh. should have an mvp

Granting that single line reasoning has been obviously been accepted ... what there is here is a statement that likely regards the present season ... when a voter (fellow Luka voter) was warned in the previous thread about including the present season. [prior sentence edited for clarity]

As I say, not my remit to enforce, not a mod, not project runner etc - just alerting you core reasoning here gives the appearance of not being within project guidelines.

[eminence]

Vote #1: Bob Davies
-Has the best longevity here imo (8 prime seasons, 7 for Gus, 5 for Cliff, 4 for Jayson/Luka)
-All-NBA level guy in prime, a few may be a step above that, but not multiple steps, so the longevity edge wins out for me
-Clearly most team success as the lead

Vote #2: Gus Williams
-Better defender than Bob, but I think too far behind on offense to have an overall lead
-Still, passable longevity and a strong impact signal
-I'm up for getting a 2nd Sonic on the list, they were certainly a cast performance

Nomination #1: Chris Bosh
-Respectable longevity despite retiring early
-Well-rounded game, generally a bit underappreciated as a defender
-He/Worthy are the last of the great 2nd/3rd guys I'm considering (sorry Pollard)

Nomination #2: Dominique Wilkins
-It appears to be him vs Marc
-I clearly prefer his time as team lead, and generally prefer Conley over Marc
-Marc getting a chance to be a #4-5 for a half season at the end on a loaded team doesn't really sway much for me, though I'll agree he's more likely to fit into that role than Wilkins

[Owly]

Very quick first skim/glance on some Gus things

Arrival departure impact isn't my favorite thing - in general I don't like smushing it into "WoWY" as rosters change, players change (including the player in question) though that's also a problem with multi-year WoWY and you're likely to need multiple years to get a decent sample ...

But for Gus ... there is a clear down and up. There are other changes as noted. Though the loss of DJ for ultimately, what would transpire to be nothing of value by '82 (Westphal didn't play, was cut) is probably most notable though.

At a glance I'd summarize it as (rotation wise) (80 to 82)
DJ out
John Johnson functionally out
Silas out
LaGarde out

Donaldson in
Walker playing significantly more
Hanzlik in
Vranes in

81 has
out from both surrounding years
Williams out
Shelton mostly out (plays 14 early season games, Seattle ourscored by circa a point a game for this spell)
only really around for that year
Vinnie Johnson in
James Bailey emerges into rotation
limited amount of reduced version of Westphal
from 80 or 82
Hanzlik and Walker from later, and Donaldson at the fringes
J Johnson from before.

At a glance the vaguely prime adjacent era departure-arrival stuff [GS arrival 76; 77 to 78 departure-arrival (GS and Seattle); 80 to 81 to 82 (internal Seattle) and 84 to 85 departure-arrival (Seattle and Was) all trend consistently in the right direction. It's a noisy enough measure that it's not huge but only the central Seattle contract dispute adjacent years are fully prime yet each time both teams (where two teams involved) could be read to suggest (if taken on face value before looking at other changes) having Gus was better than not by not inconsiderable amounts. As the probable least worst impact indicator available for Williams that picture looks pretty positive for him and that's something that doesn't account for the playoff boost.

I do think the Bogues point is entirely legitimate. He's a lot smaller than the vast majority of other NBA players. If inch-for-inch is part of ones criteria then it's a thing that must be a huge boon for Bogues.

I think the "starter" phrasing causing confusion is understandable.

[Doctor MJ]

Personal Vote:

Induction Vote 1: Bob Davies
Induction Vote 2: Jayson Tatum

Continuing to side with Davies, and I think I've said a good amount about Tatum who has had a remarkably consistent string of success since his career began.

Was Tatum fortunate to land in Boston? Sure. But let's also keep in mind that Ainge's decision to choose Tatum when he had the #1 overall pick in the 2017 draft was by far the most important player acquisition choice of the bunch in this generation.

Nomination Vote 1: James Worthy
Nomination Vote 2: Chris Bosh

Switching the two guys this time. I don't feel that strongly about the gap between the two but have been favoring Bosh because he's been the stronger candidate in the voting. All things being equal, I think what Worthy did stood out a little bit more to me. It's easy to point to Magic and not be that impressed by his non-Kareem teammates, but I don't think there's any doubt that that Worthy was someone capable of starring in his own right, and as others have pointed out, he was known for doing this on the biggest stage.

[Doctor MJ]

Tallies:

Induction 1:

Gus - 4 (AEnigma, trelos, Clyde, OSNB)
Luka - 4 (Ohayo, falco, f4p, ShaqA)
Tatum - 5(beast, Samurai, trex, iggy, hcl)
Davies - 2 (eminence, Doc)

Eliminating Davies:

Gus - 1 (eminence)
Luka - 0 (none)
Tatum - 1 (Doc)

Eliminating Luka:

Gus - 1 (falco)
Tatum - 2 (Ohayo, ShaqA)
neither - 1 (f4p)

Jayson Tatum 8, Gus Williams 6
Jayson Tatum is Inducted at #94


Nomination 1:

Nique - 3 (AEnigma, trex, OSNB)
Gasol - 3 (Ohayo, falco, hcl)
Daniels - 1 (beast)
Lucas - 1 (samurai)
Porter - 1(trelos)
Melo - 1 (Clyde)
Worthy - 2(ShaqA, Doc)
eminence - 1 (Bosh)
none - 2 (iggy, f4p)

Going to Vote 2 between Nique & Gasol:

Nique - 2 (Clyde, eminence)
Gasol - 1 (ShaqA)
neither - 6 (beast, Samurai, trelos, iggy, f4p, Doc)

Dominique Wilkins 5, Marc Gasol 4
Dominique Wilkins is added to Nominee list.