Devin Booker

[lilfishi22]

We are going to gloss over that, because when you are a scoring talent like Booker, defense is optional. See: Harden, James; Lillard, Damian; Irving, Kyrie; Iverson, Allen.

It comes down to who Coach prioritizes in the offense. I don’t know who will benefit in our new offense, or what it will be, but Book does not have to compete with three All Stars for touches like Tatum does.

And what about the combined impact ? Booker's great scoring plus turnstile defense vs Tatum's efficient scoring plus great D

Booker is more negative defensively than he is positive offensively so he's a net negative and this is with already great offense. Tatum's offense is not levels behind Booker but his defense is significantly better, like magnitudes better.

Efficiency decreases as volume increases. Tatum’s value is multiplied by the cumulative effect of Stevens’ system, Horford’s value as one of the most valuable spacing big men in the spacing era, Kyrie’s ability to penetrate, the value of Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart, and the playoff value of Terry Rozier. That’s a lot for which to account. With all that said, I cannot evaluate Tatum in a vacuum.

Of course Booker was a negative defensively. He can only do so much. Anchoring the team on defense is not what we ask offensive superstars to do. If Booker is going to be one, we probably won’t ask him to be a defensive stopper. We’ll hide him.

Negative environments usually include exponential decay. Positive environments usually include exponential growth. With all of the help around Tatum, it is impossible to compare him to Booker because he has a modicum of Booker’s responsibility to his team.

So Booker's efficiency should continue to fall if he's to get to Lilliard, AI, Harden levels of scoring? Which is where he needs to get to in order to offset his porous defense.

[8on]

And what about the combined impact ? Booker's great scoring plus turnstile defense vs Tatum's efficient scoring plus great D

Booker is more negative defensively than he is positive offensively so he's a net negative and this is with already great offense. Tatum's offense is not levels behind Booker but his defense is significantly better, like magnitudes better.

Efficiency decreases as volume increases. Tatum’s value is multiplied by the cumulative effect of Stevens’ system, Horford’s value as one of the most valuable spacing big men in the spacing era, Kyrie’s ability to penetrate, the value of Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart, and the playoff value of Terry Rozier. That’s a lot for which to account. With all that said, I cannot evaluate Tatum in a vacuum.

Of course Booker was a negative defensively. He can only do so much. Anchoring the team on defense is not what we ask offensive superstars to do. If Booker is going to be one, we probably won’t ask him to be a defensive stopper. We’ll hide him.

Negative environments usually include exponential decay. Positive environments usually include exponential growth. With all of the help around Tatum, it is impossible to compare him to Booker because he has a modicum of Booker’s responsibility to his team.

So Booker's efficiency should continue to fall if he's to get to Lilliard, AI, Harden levels of scoring? Which is where he needs to get to in order to offset his porous defense.

I think he was close this season.

[JDLAW]

It's really hard to get a win on these polls when you've been on a team for 3 years winning on average 23 games and you're still a horrible defender. Tatum has the benefit of playing for a great coach, in a great system next to role players who allow him to shine, he plays both ends of the court and had some big moments on a team that won 55 games and took Lebron to 7 games in the ECF. I'm not surprised by the results and I don't blame fans for going with the younger, more complete player who played a pivotal role on a great team.

I also think Suns fan are a bit salty by the fact that a young rookie has come in and done what he did in his first season in the league while Booker is somewhat putting up stats on a team that hasn't won more than 24 games in the last 3 seasons. Is it entirely his fault? No but Suns fans just have to face the facts that Tatum is on a good team with a good system that allows him to win and it's not fair to diminish his accomplishment and value just because he's on a great team.

Tatum is a really good player and in isolation, I might even take him over Booker just because he does almost everything Booker can do but also play D. But I still lean towards Booker because he's a Phoenix Sun and should have our support.

I don't think the Suns are salty at all. if you'd like Tatum, that's fine. I'd take Booker over Tatum every day of the week.I will always take a player who is excellent/elite at something (especially scoring) as opposed to a player who does a little bit of everything, but does not excel at anything.

It's funny how Boston and Philly fans seem to feel the need to benchmark their players against Booker. There is a reason they call it benchmarking.

I am tired of everyone calling his defense "horrendous, awful..." It's BS his defense is not great, but the Suns had no defensive scheme. I watched all of the games this past year, he was an average on-the-ball defender and there were numerous times early in the year where he took on the other team's best offensive player and either slowed him or shut him down. He is more than capable of playing defense and has demonstrated it. One of the ways teams like Utah (and others) defend Booker is to run him through multiple picks and screens when he [Booker ] is on defense - it wears him out and takes his legs from him out. He can be better defensively, and likely will this upcoming season when he has some better players to play with.

Finally, please don't cite "Advanced Defensive Stats" to me. They are worthless. Before you cite them, look at the footnotes that say that these are, "Estimates from box scores." Believe them if you want, but if you cite them to me, I will cut and paste a box score and ask you to show me for any given field goal who Booker was guarding, was he screened or picked on any given play, was there supposed to be a switch, was Booker even on the floor? These "stats"/estimates are rife with false precision. Two guys in a room looking at box score stats and heavily massaging them heavily cannot tell anything about a player's defensive capability.

[lilfishi22]

I fully acknowledge Booker is a very good player solely on his offensive abilities alone. But I also feel like some Suns fan don't give Tatum his due acknowledgment. There's no way a rookie should come in and put up almost 19ppg as the go-to scorer on a ECF team. He did that, as a rookie. And as I've said, I'd take Booker over Tatum because I think his scoring abilities has the potential to turn a playoff team into a contender if all else is equal whereas I think Tatum has the potential to be the difference between a playoff team and an elite playoff team. But I just roll my eyes whenever Suns fan diminish Tatum's accomplishments. I just don't get the hate he gets. He's an awesome player, on a good team and he's arguably the best player that team. Does he really need a 40, 50, 60, 70 point game to justify his on court value? Or does 19ppg in the playoffs in his rookie year more than make up for it?

Also, if we throw advanced stats out the window, what do we have to go by? Each fan's subjective evaluation? if that's, the case, I think you'll find virtually every Suns fan would agree that he's a bad, bad defend.

[bwgood77]

It's really hard to get a win on these polls when you've been on a team for 3 years winning on average 23 games and you're still a horrible defender. Tatum has the benefit of playing for a great coach, in a great system next to role players who allow him to shine, he plays both ends of the court and had some big moments on a team that won 55 games and took Lebron to 7 games in the ECF. I'm not surprised by the results and I don't blame fans for going with the younger, more complete player who played a pivotal role on a great team.

I also think Suns fan are a bit salty by the fact that a young rookie has come in and done what he did in his first season in the league while Booker is somewhat putting up stats on a team that hasn't won more than 24 games in the last 3 seasons. Is it entirely his fault? No but Suns fans just have to face the facts that Tatum is on a good team with a good system that allows him to win and it's not fair to diminish his accomplishment and value just because he's on a great team.

Tatum is a really good player and in isolation, I might even take him over Booker just because he does almost everything Booker can do but also play D. But I still lean towards Booker because he's a Phoenix Sun and should have our support.

I don't think the Suns are salty at all. if you'd like Tatum, that's fine. I'd take Booker over Tatum every day of the week.I will always take a player who is excellent/elite at something (especially scoring) as opposed to a player who does a little bit of everything, but does not excel at anything.

It's funny how Boston and Philly fans seem to feel the need to benchmark their players against Booker. There is a reason they call it benchmarking.

I am tired of everyone calling his defense "horrendous, awful..." It's BS his defense is not great, but the Suns had no defensive scheme. I watched all of the games this past year, he was an average on-the-ball defender and there were numerous times early in the year where he took on the other team's best offensive player and either slowed him or shut him down. He is more than capable of playing defense and has demonstrated it. One of the ways teams like Utah (and others) defend Booker is to run him through multiple picks and screens when he [Booker ] is on defense - it wears him out and takes his legs from him out. He can be better defensively, and likely will this upcoming season when he has some better players to play with.

Finally, please don't cite "Advanced Defensive Stats" to me. They are worthless. Before you cite them, look at the footnotes that say that these are, "Estimates from box scores." Believe them if you want, but if you cite them to me, I will cut and paste a box score and ask you to show me for any given field goal who Booker was guarding, was he screened or picked on any given play, was there supposed to be a switch, was Booker even on the floor? These "stats"/estimates are rife with false precision. Two guys in a room looking at box score stats and heavily massaging them heavily cannot tell anything about a player's defensive capability.

I respect your opinion but in my opinion Booker is not a good defender. You are right he has shown capability at times, but he is not engaged their most of the time. That hopefully should change. Advanced stats you can ignore, but they are, for the most part, on the mark. He has been one of the worst defenders in the league. If you watched him and think he is good there, then maybe you just haven't done so in comparison with the rest of the league, which is fine.

Our coaching has sucked though and perhaps he improves and i think he has said he will make it a priority, but he had not been a good defender at all on any metric or advanced stat you look at. Bad team defense hurts him, but he is FAR behind anyone else on our team in this regard....except maybe some scrubs.

[Qwigglez]

I really like Tatum. I wanted him over Jackson in the draft last year.

As for Booker, I don't think he's as bad as everyone thinks he is defensively. When you are the sole creator of your team's offense, I'd think you'd possibly take some defensive plays off just so you don't wear yourself out. This upcoming season, with the improvement of the entire team, I'd think Booker won't have to work as hard on offense which will give him more energy on defense.
I can't wait for Booker to show up next season with a half decent squad around him so we can put this "bad defender" thing to rest.

[JDLAW]

It's really hard to get a win on these polls when you've been on a team for 3 years winning on average 23 games and you're still a horrible defender. Tatum has the benefit of playing for a great coach, in a great system next to role players who allow him to shine, he plays both ends of the court and had some big moments on a team that won 55 games and took Lebron to 7 games in the ECF. I'm not surprised by the results and I don't blame fans for going with the younger, more complete player who played a pivotal role on a great team.

I also think Suns fan are a bit salty by the fact that a young rookie has come in and done what he did in his first season in the league while Booker is somewhat putting up stats on a team that hasn't won more than 24 games in the last 3 seasons. Is it entirely his fault? No but Suns fans just have to face the facts that Tatum is on a good team with a good system that allows him to win and it's not fair to diminish his accomplishment and value just because he's on a great team.

Tatum is a really good player and in isolation, I might even take him over Booker just because he does almost everything Booker can do but also play D. But I still lean towards Booker because he's a Phoenix Sun and should have our support.

I don't think the Suns are salty at all. if you'd like Tatum, that's fine. I'd take Booker over Tatum every day of the week.I will always take a player who is excellent/elite at something (especially scoring) as opposed to a player who does a little bit of everything, but does not excel at anything.

It's funny how Boston and Philly fans seem to feel the need to benchmark their players against Booker. There is a reason they call it benchmarking.

I am tired of everyone calling his defense "horrendous, awful..." It's BS his defense is not great, but the Suns had no defensive scheme. I watched all of the games this past year, he was an average on-the-ball defender and there were numerous times early in the year where he took on the other team's best offensive player and either slowed him or shut him down. He is more than capable of playing defense and has demonstrated it. One of the ways teams like Utah (and others) defend Booker is to run him through multiple picks and screens when he [Booker ] is on defense - it wears him out and takes his legs from him out. He can be better defensively, and likely will this upcoming season when he has some better players to play with.

Finally, please don't cite "Advanced Defensive Stats" to me. They are worthless. Before you cite them, look at the footnotes that say that these are, "Estimates from box scores." Believe them if you want, but if you cite them to me, I will cut and paste a box score and ask you to show me for any given field goal who Booker was guarding, was he screened or picked on any given play, was there supposed to be a switch, was Booker even on the floor? These "stats"/estimates are rife with false precision. Two guys in a room looking at box score stats and heavily massaging them heavily cannot tell anything about a player's defensive capability.

I respect your opinion but in my opinion Booker is not a good defender. You are right he has shown capability at times, but he is not engaged their most of the time. That hopefully should change. Advanced stats you can ignore, but they are, for the most part, on the mark. He has been one of the worst defenders in the league. If you watched him and think he is good there, then maybe you just haven't done so in comparison with the rest of the league, which is fine.

Our coaching has sucked though and perhaps he improves and i think he has said he will make it a priority, but he had not been a good defender at all on any metric or advanced stat you look at. Bad team defense hurts him, but he is FAR behind anyone else on our team in this regard....except maybe some scrubs.

My friend you have your opinion and I have mine, but I think you place too much credence in what are guesses and heavily massaged estimates from others who "compute" these. I am going to go with what I actually see. Even the massagers of these estimates acknowledge they are heavily massaged estimates taken from box scores. As a chemical engineer and lawyer by training, I know have had to try to determine such things as reaction rate coefficients and heat transfer coefficients from experimental data just like these guys do, but the difference is that I knew what the scientific and engineering relationships were supposed to be. I also knew what the precision was for my data was unlike these guys. I never tried to massage my data to guess at something not based in the real worlds of science and engineering relationships. I also took courses in statistical quality control from a man who was the guru in the field and who taught the Japanese auto makers quality (Deming). My legal training taught me to be skeptical of the snake oil some of these advanced stat guys are trying to sell. You have always seemed to be well grounded and frankly I am a little surprised you don't have similar skepticism.

[JDLAW]

I fully acknowledge Booker is a very good player solely on his offensive abilities alone. But I also feel like some Suns fan don't give Tatum his due acknowledgment. There's no way a rookie should come in and put up almost 19ppg as the go-to scorer on a ECF team. He did that, as a rookie. And as I've said, I'd take Booker over Tatum because I think his scoring abilities has the potential to turn a playoff team into a contender if all else is equal whereas I think Tatum has the potential to be the difference between a playoff team and an elite playoff team. But I just roll my eyes whenever Suns fan diminish Tatum's accomplishments. I just don't get the hate he gets. He's an awesome player, on a good team and he's arguably the best player that team. Does he really need a 40, 50, 60, 70 point game to justify his on court value? Or does 19ppg in the playoffs in his rookie year more than make up for it?

Also, if we throw advanced stats out the window, what do we have to go by? Each fan's subjective evaluation? if that's, the case, I think you'll find virtually every Suns fan would agree that he's a bad, bad defend.

Tatum is a fine player playing in an excellent system. No one is trying to diminish his accomplishments. Unlike some, I am not ready to anoint him as a superstar headed for the hall of fame. By the way, comparing apples to apples Booker averaged 25ppg in the regular season versus 14ppg for Tatum. Booker also averaged 54ppg against Boston over his last two games.

[bwgood77]

I don't think the Suns are salty at all. if you'd like Tatum, that's fine. I'd take Booker over Tatum every day of the week.I will always take a player who is excellent/elite at something (especially scoring) as opposed to a player who does a little bit of everything, but does not excel at anything.

It's funny how Boston and Philly fans seem to feel the need to benchmark their players against Booker. There is a reason they call it benchmarking.

I am tired of everyone calling his defense "horrendous, awful..." It's BS his defense is not great, but the Suns had no defensive scheme. I watched all of the games this past year, he was an average on-the-ball defender and there were numerous times early in the year where he took on the other team's best offensive player and either slowed him or shut him down. He is more than capable of playing defense and has demonstrated it. One of the ways teams like Utah (and others) defend Booker is to run him through multiple picks and screens when he [Booker ] is on defense - it wears him out and takes his legs from him out. He can be better defensively, and likely will this upcoming season when he has some better players to play with.

Finally, please don't cite "Advanced Defensive Stats" to me. They are worthless. Before you cite them, look at the footnotes that say that these are, "Estimates from box scores." Believe them if you want, but if you cite them to me, I will cut and paste a box score and ask you to show me for any given field goal who Booker was guarding, was he screened or picked on any given play, was there supposed to be a switch, was Booker even on the floor? These "stats"/estimates are rife with false precision. Two guys in a room looking at box score stats and heavily massaging them heavily cannot tell anything about a player's defensive capability.

I respect your opinion but in my opinion Booker is not a good defender. You are right he has shown capability at times, but he is not engaged their most of the time. That hopefully should change. Advanced stats you can ignore, but they are, for the most part, on the mark. He has been one of the worst defenders in the league. If you watched him and think he is good there, then maybe you just haven't done so in comparison with the rest of the league, which is fine.

Our coaching has sucked though and perhaps he improves and i think he has said he will make it a priority, but he had not been a good defender at all on any metric or advanced stat you look at. Bad team defense hurts him, but he is FAR behind anyone else on our team in this regard....except maybe some scrubs.

My friend you have your opinion and I have mine, but I think you place too much credence in what are guesses and heavily massaged estimates from others who "compute" these. I am going to go with what I actually see. Even the massagers of these estimates acknowledge they are heavily massaged estimates taken from box scores. As a chemical engineer and lawyer by training, I know have had to try to determine such things as reaction rate coefficients and heat transfer coefficients from experimental data just like these guys do, but the difference is that I knew what the scientific and engineering relationships were supposed to be. I also knew what the precision was for my data was unlike these guys. I never tried to massage my data to guess at something not based in the real worlds of science and engineering relationships. I also took courses in statistical quality control from a man who was the guru in the field and who taught the Japanese auto makers quality (Deming). My legal training taught me to be skeptical of the snake oil some of these advanced stat guys are trying to sell. You have always seemed to be well grounded and frankly I am a little surprised you don't have similar skepticism.

Because I use the eye test and then also check to see what all the various models and on/off calculations tell me to confirm and also try to remove bias.

[JMac1]

I don't even entertain those discussions anymore. Lavine, Mitchel, Tatum et al.... Not worth it. Booker averaged 22pts his second year and we all had to hold expectations to see if it was real for his 3rd year, and it was. I love Mitchell and I think he is gonna be a star, but one year averaging 20pts don't make him better than Booker. Same goes for Tatum. That dude doesn't even show up on the scouting report as Eddie J says. Give him a whole year as the number one option and when teams play to stop him, give me a call. Plus he isn't a stopper nor a top rebounder or assist man. He had a good play off run averaging 18 points a game and 4 rebs and 2 asst. He is promising, but to say he is better than Booker is ludicrous.

Mitchell could be because he is more athletic but Booker shoots better, however Tatum, he has to convince me that he is gonna be better than Josh first in the long term, and outside of his shooting, give me JJ.

The defensive issue cannot really be quantified accurately, although they appear in the other guys favor; hmmm....I wonder if playing on a playoff team has anything to do with it.

Not a person outside of the RealGM and Boston and Utah would take any of those guys over Booker. Even my Laker friends love Booker. I remember Tryeke Evans.... For me you need 2-3 years of great play, not one year of averaging 13 pts

I use offense because that is the barometer in basketball, unless you are Rudy or Pippen or MJ or Bowen on defense and neither one of those guys are elite defenders.

As for JJ V Tatum. Tatum is the Golden child and I get it. He played well on Prime Time for an organization that has more fans and media covergae. He is "better" than JJ today, however, I didn't forget what they looked like playing against each other here in Phoenix either. I didn't see an "omg, Tatum is better than JJ" when they were on the court side by side.

I like JJ better because he gets to the rim at will, even in half-court sets. Tatum doesn't do that, he is the king of pull-ups. I swear, every time I see Tatum taking a shot, its open. Credit him for being smart and the Celtics for putting him in that situation. Josh is waaaaay more active defensively than Tatum. We have a stupid defense that has Booker and Jackson running around, over, and under screens chasing guys like they are trying to cross No Mans Land in WWI.

Also, JJ handles and passing is better, and he is a better shot creator; he just can't make them yet, , maybe ever, . That's why he fell to 4. News flash, JJ is creative as hell. Dude has right and left handed hook shots, floaters, floaters off of the glass. Half the time when he shoots a circus shot I am like WTH?!? But he is athletic and coordinated, so it isn't as difficult as you might think.

Tatum is a straight-line player in the mold of Rudy Gay, there is no breakdown of a defender, then blow by. He shake shake shake and shoots a pull up over the guy. Nothing wrong with that, but JJ can do that and get to the Free Throw line, alas, D Wade, KJ, Kobe, Jordan, Harden, AI, Grant Hill..... I prefer that over the Ray Allen Reggie Miller type, create enough space to shoot because I can't get a layup or free throw.

I guess it depends on your preference. Again, if JJ doesn't improve his shot, then Tatum will always be better. Tatum was safer pick than JJ. But please, don't even compare him to Booker... I am not having that discussion, its foolish. If someone would take Tatum or Mitchell over Booker after 1 season and Booker's three, that's fine, I can't see it and nothing I can say will change that. Taking Mitchell over Booker, I can see, because he was the go to man in the playoffs and unstoppable. I prefer Booker, because he can flat out shoot the ball.

Mitchell is ridiculously unstoppable. If he had Booker's shot or Booker had his quicks So I guess Mitchell has a chance to be better than Book, because he can get a better shot more than Booker can get faster..........maybe.

Booker needs to leave TMZ and LA alone and hit the weights and some plyos.... Posting this really made me realize how good Mitchell is. D Wade with a better 3 ball

[lilfishi22]

I fully acknowledge Booker is a very good player solely on his offensive abilities alone. But I also feel like some Suns fan don't give Tatum his due acknowledgment. There's no way a rookie should come in and put up almost 19ppg as the go-to scorer on a ECF team. He did that, as a rookie. And as I've said, I'd take Booker over Tatum because I think his scoring abilities has the potential to turn a playoff team into a contender if all else is equal whereas I think Tatum has the potential to be the difference between a playoff team and an elite playoff team. But I just roll my eyes whenever Suns fan diminish Tatum's accomplishments. I just don't get the hate he gets. He's an awesome player, on a good team and he's arguably the best player that team. Does he really need a 40, 50, 60, 70 point game to justify his on court value? Or does 19ppg in the playoffs in his rookie year more than make up for it?

Also, if we throw advanced stats out the window, what do we have to go by? Each fan's subjective evaluation? if that's, the case, I think you'll find virtually every Suns fan would agree that he's a bad, bad defend.

Tatum is a fine player playing in an excellent system. No one is trying to diminish his accomplishments. Unlike some, I am not ready to anoint him as a superstar headed for the hall of fame. By the way, comparing apples to apples Booker averaged 25ppg in the regular season versus 14ppg for Tatum. Booker also averaged 54ppg against Boston over his last two games.

Nobody is

I still take 19ppg in the playoffs over 25ppg on the worst team in the league and a two-game 54ppg sample

[lilfishi22]

I respect your opinion but in my opinion Booker is not a good defender. You are right he has shown capability at times, but he is not engaged their most of the time. That hopefully should change. Advanced stats you can ignore, but they are, for the most part, on the mark. He has been one of the worst defenders in the league. If you watched him and think he is good there, then maybe you just haven't done so in comparison with the rest of the league, which is fine.

Our coaching has sucked though and perhaps he improves and i think he has said he will make it a priority, but he had not been a good defender at all on any metric or advanced stat you look at. Bad team defense hurts him, but he is FAR behind anyone else on our team in this regard....except maybe some scrubs.

My friend you have your opinion and I have mine, but I think you place too much credence in what are guesses and heavily massaged estimates from others who "compute" these. I am going to go with what I actually see. Even the massagers of these estimates acknowledge they are heavily massaged estimates taken from box scores. As a chemical engineer and lawyer by training, I know have had to try to determine such things as reaction rate coefficients and heat transfer coefficients from experimental data just like these guys do, but the difference is that I knew what the scientific and engineering relationships were supposed to be. I also knew what the precision was for my data was unlike these guys. I never tried to massage my data to guess at something not based in the real worlds of science and engineering relationships. I also took courses in statistical quality control from a man who was the guru in the field and who taught the Japanese auto makers quality (Deming). My legal training taught me to be skeptical of the snake oil some of these advanced stat guys are trying to sell. You have always seemed to be well grounded and frankly I am a little surprised you don't have similar skepticism.

Because I use the eye test and then also check to see what all the various models and on/off calculations tell me to confirm and also try to remove bias.

Exactly! No one should use either in isolation because the eye test is entirely subjective and advanced stats aren't perfect either but you can get a pretty good picture when you use them in conjunction with each other.

[bwgood77]

I don't even entertain those discussions anymore. Lavine, Mitchel, Tatum et al.... Not worth it. Booker averaged 22pts his second year and we all had to hold expectations to see if it was real for his 3rd year, and it was. I love Mitchell and I think he is gonna be a star, but one year averaging 20pts don't make him better than Booker. Same goes for Tatum. That dude doesn't even show up on the scouting report as Eddie J says. Give him a whole year as the number one option and when teams play to stop him, give me a call. Plus he isn't a stopper nor a top rebounder or assist man. He had a good play off run averaging 18 points a game and 4 rebs and 2 asst. He is promising, but to say he is better than Booker is ludicrous.

Mitchell could be because he is more athletic but Booker shoots better, however Tatum, he has to convince me that he is gonna be better than Josh first in the long term, and outside of his shooting, give me JJ.

The defensive issue cannot really be quantified accurately, although they appear in the other guys favor; hmmm....I wonder if playing on a playoff team has anything to do with it.

Not a person outside of the RealGM and Boston and Utah would take any of those guys over Booker. Even my Laker friends love Booker. I remember Tryeke Evans.... For me you need 2-3 years of great play, not one year of averaging 13 pts

I use offense because that is the barometer in basketball, unless you are Rudy or Pippen or MJ or Bowen on defense and neither one of those guys are elite defenders.

As for JJ V Tatum. Tatum is the Golden child and I get it. He played well on Prime Time for an organization that has more fans and media covergae. He is "better" than JJ today, however, I didn't forget what they looked like playing against each other here in Phoenix either. I didn't see an "omg, Tatum is better than JJ" when they were on the court side by side.

I like JJ better because he gets to the rim at will, even in half-court sets. Tatum doesn't do that, he is the king of pull-ups. I swear, every time I see Tatum taking a shot, its open. Credit him for being smart and the Celtics for putting him in that situation. Josh is waaaaay more active defensively than Tatum. We have a stupid defense that has Booker and Jackson running around, over, and under screens chasing guys like they are trying to cross No Mans Land in WWI.

Also, JJ handles and passing is better, and he is a better shot creator; he just can't make them yet, , maybe ever, . That's why he fell to 4. News flash, JJ is creative as hell. Dude has right and left handed hook shots, floaters, floaters off of the glass. Half the time when he shoots a circus shot I am like WTH?!? But he is athletic and coordinated, so it isn't as difficult as you might think.

Tatum is a straight-line player in the mold of Rudy Gay, there is no breakdown of a defender, then blow by. He shake shake shake and shoots a pull up over the guy. Nothing wrong with that, but JJ can do that and get to the Free Throw line, alas, D Wade, KJ, Kobe, Jordan, Harden, AI, Grant Hill..... I prefer that over the Ray Allen Reggie Miller type, create enough space to shoot because I can't get a layup or free throw.

I guess it depends on your preference. Again, if JJ doesn't improve his shot, then Tatum will always be better. Tatum was safer pick than JJ. But please, don't even compare him to Booker... I am not having that discussion, its foolish. If someone would take Tatum or Mitchell over Booker after 1 season and Booker's three, that's fine, I can't see it and nothing I can say will change that. Taking Mitchell over Booker, I can see, because he was the go to man in the playoffs and unstoppable. I prefer Booker, because he can flat out shoot the ball.

Mitchell is ridiculously unstoppable. If he had Booker's shot or Booker had his quicks So I guess Mitchell has a chance to be better than Book, because he can get a better shot more than Booker can get faster..........maybe.

Booker needs to leave TMZ and LA alone and hit the weights and some plyos.... Posting this really made me realize how good Mitchell is. D Wade with a better 3 ball

You seem to get hung on on Tatum or Josh vs Tatum. There is no Josh vs Tatum. I didn't like Tatum a ton in the draft (granted I don't watch Duke a lot) but he felt like Melo, who I don't like. But he has proven me wrong and was fantastic. His efficiency is off the charts and his D was fantastic.

Should I credit that to Boston and Stevens? Sure, maybe some, but Smart's efficiency isn't off the charts. Roziers has never been outside of a few playoff games. Most of the players they traded out were not at that level. Tatum is GOOD.

Jackson has oozing raw talent, but for what teams need in the NBA, he was bad. He improved throughout the season but his efficiency was awful and defense not great like you thought was the calling card. But, we have the excuse of crap teammates, bad coach, team, given a lot of responsibility, and according to jredsaz he was told to be aggressive though I thought they told him not to be so aggressive before he improved.

Anyway, it's too early to ultimately judge where these guys are and will end up. There really isn't a solid argument that Jackson is or was better than Tatum right now or will be. He could end up that way and we can hope for it. And there really isn't a reason to knock Tatum anyway. The guy almost broke rookie playoff records. Jackson doesn't have to be better then him. If he even gets to as good as Tatum was this season at his peak that will be a success, though of course we hope for more.

Also, he is a different player...Jackson will be better at different things.

As for Booker, you mention no one would take Mitchell or Tatum over him outside or RealGM and those cities. Maybe not. It will be interesting to see how ESPN ranks them this year. Not that I put much stock into that, but I seem to see those guys ranked pretty high.

The defense for Booker hurts unless you just ignore that part or say that the advanced #s are wrong for him like has been argued.

Offensively, I don't think you can take too many guys, if any, over Booker at his age, but with the D, he may fall behind some. He may jump to another level this year though especially if he's playing with Bridges a lot and his efficiency should improve more if him and Jackson stagger minutes as much as possible since he shoots so much worse with Jackson on the court (unless that suddenly changes).

[JMac1]

Watch on YouTube

Man don't talk to me about Tatum or Mitchell for a few years.......

[DRK]

Anyone who has played semi-organised basketball would know that its extremely difficult to play solid man defence to get stops when the rest of your team doesnt communicate, and misses rotations on every possession.

If I had a dollar for everytime I went over a pick and called for a switch or hard hedge, only to have the big man disobey and sag back and allow an open shot... or a time when me and a teammate miscommunicated on a switch or help only to have a layup scored, because I expected the help to
come.. etx.

Defence has to be played; not individually, but as a unit; as a whole team. One man cant carry a teams defence, but one bad defender can make othr good ones look bad. Therefore I feel it is unreasonable to judge Booker as a “terrible defender” this early when; A: our team has nothing that resembles a defensive scheme, and B: none of our bigs communicate.

Lets see how Booker goes this season, with a training camp under a proven coach, and better personell sharing the floor before labelling him as a lost cause on defence.

[JMac1]

Anyone who has played semi-organised basketball would know that its extremely difficult to play solid man defence to get stops when the rest of your team doesnt communicate, and misses rotations on every possession.

If I had a dollar for everytime I went over a pick and called for a switch or hard hedge, only to have the big man disobey and sag back and allow an open shot... or a time when me and a teammate miscommunicated on a switch or help only to have a layup scored, because I expected the help to
come.. etx.

Defence has to be played; not individually, but as a unit; as a whole team. One man cant carry a teams defence, but one bad defender can make othr good ones look bad. Therefore I feel it is unreasonable to judge Booker as a “terrible defender” this early when; A: our team has nothing that resembles a defensive scheme, and B: none of our bigs communicate.

Lets see how Booker goes this season, with a training camp under a proven coach, and better personell sharing the floor before labelling him as a lost cause on defence.

You don't have to play basketball to understand logic. People choose to ignore that because it doesn't fit their narrative and analytics.... I really don't waste my time arguing with analytics only people. I dare someone to draft and sign players only by analytics without watching games and see who they end up drafting.

Just the fact people are saying Tatum is a better defender than Jackson is absurd. You can watch five minutes of basketball and see who is a better defender. Unless players are on the same team with the same players, too many variables are involved.

[NTB]

Read on Twitter

[MathiasPW]

The superstars are gonna see how Devin works, man!

[Revived]

I hope he doesn’t get recruited by other players on Team USA. Better have him sign that extension before he goes lol.

[thamadkant]

I hope he doesn’t get recruited by other players on Team USA. Better have him sign that extension before he goes lol.

this is really dangerous and a real issue..

hence Suns need to be "good" soon, so its Booker who's doing the recruiting