Around the league 2017-2018

[ivysixer2000]

All these tweets of idiots. Easy for O'Conner to say that about Tatum being #1, when Fultz has been hurt and isn't even playing. Heck they did the same to Ben last year when he wasn't playing, like he didn't exist. Tatum is playing on a good team with a great coach, he's not the focal point of any team they play against, unlike Ball. Tatum is in the easiest position of any of the early picks in this draft so I'm not that impressed at all.

Fultz will get his time to shine, and with Ben and Embiid getting more experience under their belts, it will only help him more.

[OleSchool]

Is there a team more terrifying than the Pels when they play like they did tonight?

The Cavs are done. They aren’t making the Finals.

Wait for IT to come back. He may give them a shot in the arm

[TTP]

Already one guy owning his mistake saying he should not have ranked Fultz as the best prospect. Good on him for seeing his errors.

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Disclaimer: This guy works for Bill Simmons.

[TTP]

Lonzo had 9 points at 3/10 shooting again with 4 assists, but man those points and assists were impactful.

It reminds me of arguments I got in here on marcus smart. He's shooting .282 on 13 shots per game but he's a winner.

How can you argue with that? All I can say I'm glad we have Simmons eventhough he's a loser.

Because the ability to make your team better when you're on the court and your ability to fit into lineups that outscore opponents as much as possible is more directly correlated to winning than your FG%. The winner of a basketball game is decided by whether you outscore an opponent, not by who has the highest FG%.

Marcus Smart, in spite of his flaws, has been able to fit into a playoff team's rotation every year of his career. In 2014-15, they were significantly better when he was on the floor. The last two years, they were basically as good when he played as when he didn't, which is still a good thing on a good team.

I'm not sure why you're comparing him to Lonzo though. Lonzo piles up the counting stats but the Lakers are 20.8 points worse when Lonzo is on the court (per nbawowy). That's pretty much the opposite of what Smart does.

[76ciology]

Tatum better than Fultz...


...6 games in

Let's see who's better once Fultz recovers from shoulder injury.

[PhilasFinest]

I was a Tatum fan throughout the draft process. Not throwing shade at Fultz because he has been hurt and I was on board with us nabbing him with the #1 pick.....but Tatum's size/length, scoring ability and shot were really intriguing.

Obviously it is hard to envision much due to Fultz's injury.....but a Simmons/Redick/Covington/Tatum/Embiid lineup would have been really, really interesting to see and a potential nightmare line-up to matchup with.

Hopefully Fultz gets the shoulder right and can regain his form. We need a player on the floor with the ability to score at a high level from all 3 areas.

[Unbreakable99]

What do you guys prefer when comparing stats efg or true shooting percentage? True shooting percentage includes free throws

[Unbreakable99]

I was a Tatum fan throughout the draft process. Not throwing shade at Fultz because he has been hurt and I was on board with us nabbing him with the #1 pick.....but Tatum's size/length, scoring ability and shot were really intriguing.

Obviously it is hard to envision much due to Fultz's injury.....but a Simmons/Redick/Covington/Tatum/Embiid lineup would have been really, really interesting to see and a potential nightmare line-up to matchup with.

Hopefully Fultz gets the shoulder right and can regain his form. We need a player on the floor with the ability to score at a high level from all 3 areas.

Tatum as our 4 and the ability to stretch the floor with Embiid would have been good.

[PhilasFinest]

I was a Tatum fan throughout the draft process. Not throwing shade at Fultz because he has been hurt and I was on board with us nabbing him with the #1 pick.....but Tatum's size/length, scoring ability and shot were really intriguing.

Obviously it is hard to envision much due to Fultz's injury.....but a Simmons/Redick/Covington/Tatum/Embiid lineup would have been really, really interesting to see and a potential nightmare line-up to matchup with.

Hopefully Fultz gets the shoulder right and can regain his form. We need a player on the floor with the ability to score at a high level from all 3 areas.

Tatum as our 4 and the ability to stretch the floor with Embiid would have been good.

Yea but it is not only that. He has a arsenal of moves to get a shot off and is a very good 1-1 scorer too. He can shoot, he can post up/cut/step-back/etc. We really lack an all-around scoring option on this team right now with Simmons still developing as a scorer. Outside of Embiid pretty much doing whatever he wants (which has been both good & bad early on) and Simmons drives, we are pretty much a roster full of spot up shooters with limited attacking ability.

Obviously, Fultz was brought in to bring that type of scoring ability....he just has not been able to showcase it due to the injury.

[Sixerscan]

What do you guys prefer when comparing stats efg or true shooting percentage? True shooting percentage includes free throws

TS% is generally what people use.

[James40]

TGFA, 0 points in 34 minutes vs Grizzlies, sheesh.

I wonder how many times he stepped out of bounds.

[OleSchool]

Canan released lol

[ivysixer2000]

I was a Tatum fan throughout the draft process. Not throwing shade at Fultz because he has been hurt and I was on board with us nabbing him with the #1 pick.....but Tatum's size/length, scoring ability and shot were really intriguing.

Obviously it is hard to envision much due to Fultz's injury.....but a Simmons/Redick/Covington/Tatum/Embiid lineup would have been really, really interesting to see and a potential nightmare line-up to matchup with.

Hopefully Fultz gets the shoulder right and can regain his form. We need a player on the floor with the ability to score at a high level from all 3 areas.

Sounds fun, except do you really want JJ guarding John Wall, Kyrie and such?? Much rather have the upside of Fultz doing that than JJ or making Simmons do it full time.

We needed a guard, not another SF longer term.

[spikeslovechild]

Lonzo had 9 points at 3/10 shooting again with 4 assists, but man those points and assists were impactful.

It reminds me of arguments I got in here on marcus smart. He's shooting .282 on 13 shots per game but he's a winner.

How can you argue with that? All I can say I'm glad we have Simmons eventhough he's a loser.

Because the ability to make your team better when you're on the court and your ability to fit into lineups that outscore opponents as much as possible is more directly correlated to winning than your FG%. The winner of a basketball game is decided by whether you outscore an opponent, not by who has the highest FG%.

Marcus Smart, in spite of his flaws, has been able to fit into a playoff team's rotation every year of his career. In 2014-15, they were significantly better when he was on the floor. The last two years, they were basically as good when he played as when he didn't, which is still a good thing on a good team.

I'm not sure why you're comparing him to Lonzo though. Lonzo piles up the counting stats but the Lakers are 20.8 points worse when Lonzo is on the court (per nbawowy). That's pretty much the opposite of what Smart does.

Yeah, like I said he's a winner alright.

What I sort of have a major problem with these on the court and off the court stats is they don't measure how good a player is just how useful they are to a team. In some cases their backups are trash. In other cases and what sort of applies to Smart he posses the very small, very specific subset skills the Celtics are looking for from a PG. In otherwords he fits with the celtics. They have shooters. They have point forwards who can take the load off and compensate for his lack of traditional PG skills.

However, that doesn't make him a good player and that doesn't mean the average NBA team would play the same way with him on the court. I know everyone is sort of looking for the Rosetta stone and to capture intangibles but you have to also trust what you see and the basics. Things like making shots, creating for your teammates, if you are not a good shooter limiting the damage on the offensive end. Most advanced stats indicate he is not a good player. Almost all traditional stats indicate he is not a good player. It's just a very specific small nba fangroup that loves his hustle on defense which is great but that doesn't override ALL his other negatives.

[PhilasFinest]

I was a Tatum fan throughout the draft process. Not throwing shade at Fultz because he has been hurt and I was on board with us nabbing him with the #1 pick.....but Tatum's size/length, scoring ability and shot were really intriguing.

Obviously it is hard to envision much due to Fultz's injury.....but a Simmons/Redick/Covington/Tatum/Embiid lineup would have been really, really interesting to see and a potential nightmare line-up to matchup with.

Hopefully Fultz gets the shoulder right and can regain his form. We need a player on the floor with the ability to score at a high level from all 3 areas.

Sounds fun, except do you really want JJ guarding John Wall, Kyrie and such?? Much rather have the upside of Fultz doing that than JJ or making Simmons do it full time.

We needed a guard, not another SF longer term.

Fultz isn't exactly Tony Allen though.Sure he has the measurable's to become a decent defender, but he's not locking guys up right away(if ever).
Covington is our best perimeter defender and is likely to guard teams better players just like he does a lot now....and with all that length/size,you could switch a TON.Covington/Simmons/Tatum are likely ripping 6+ steals a game combined + deflections, which is generating turnovers and getting us out on the break. Oh and you still have Embiid anchoring the paint. If JJ's defense is the issue, replace him with any quality wing that can shoot+defend and you still have the makings of a nightmare lineup.

Like I said, I was on board with Fultz and think he will be fine once he actually gets healthy.....His scoring ability is much needed for this team to continue trending upwards, but the potential of that lineup has intrigued me since pre-draft.

[Sixerscan]

I was a Tatum fan throughout the draft process. Not throwing shade at Fultz because he has been hurt and I was on board with us nabbing him with the #1 pick.....but Tatum's size/length, scoring ability and shot were really intriguing.

Obviously it is hard to envision much due to Fultz's injury.....but a Simmons/Redick/Covington/Tatum/Embiid lineup would have been really, really interesting to see and a potential nightmare line-up to matchup with.

Hopefully Fultz gets the shoulder right and can regain his form. We need a player on the floor with the ability to score at a high level from all 3 areas.

Sounds fun, except do you really want JJ guarding John Wall, Kyrie and such?? Much rather have the upside of Fultz doing that than JJ or making Simmons do it full time.

We needed a guard, not another SF longer term.

Fultz isn't exactly Tony Allen though.Sure he has the measurable's to become a decent defender, but he's not locking guys up right away(if ever).
Covington is our best perimeter defender and is likely to guard teams better players just like he does a lot now....and with all that length/size,you could switch a TON.Covington/Simmons/Tatum are likely ripping 6+ steals a game combined + deflections, which is generating turnovers and getting us out on the break. Oh and you still have Embiid anchoring the paint. If JJ's defense is the issue, replace him with any quality wing that can shoot+defend and you still have the makings of a nightmare lineup.

Like I said, I was on board with Fultz and think he will be fine once he actually gets healthy.....His scoring ability is much needed for this team to continue trending upwards, but the potential of that lineup has intrigued me since pre-draft.

You could also do that for the Tatum role?

Would have been great to have gotten the Lakers pick so we could have filled in the two spots that were missing in the lineup (an attacking guard and another 2 way wing/forward). But they only got one pick and I think they decided that the guard spot was more important and papering over the wing situation with a vet for a year and revisiting next summer was the way to go.

And obviously they also thought Fultz was the best player in the draft, and good enough that they potentially sacrificed an opportunity to get that 5th guy with a top 5 pick next year. We'll see whether they were right about that, but I do agree that the guard spot was/is the bigger long term need.

[Kobblehead]

I think our long-term, title contending starting line-up is set if Fultz and Luwawu hit. And Korkmaz is our hedge at the SG spot.

[PhilasFinest]

I think our long-term, title contending starting line-up is set if Fultz and Luwawu hit. And Korkmaz is our hedge at the SG spot.

You really think Luwawu has that type of upside ? I know we both liked him in the draft, but his shot just isn't improving like I had hoped(28% on 14 3PA this season)....and his finishing is still really, really underwhelming.

[Kobblehead]

You really think Luwawu has that type of upside ? I know we both liked him in the draft, but his shot just isn't improving like I had hoped(28% on 14 3PA this season)....and his finishing is still really, really underwhelming.

I do. I think his body is coming along and the shot will develop in due time. He seems to be on that Kelly Oubre development trajectory.

[Unbreakable99]

Oh.

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