Tatum VS Luka

[DroseReturnChi]

There's a legit argument that Tatum raises the level of his team more than Luka does his. He has better impact stats, from basic ones like on/off to advanced metrics like RAPM

RAPM is just an advanced metric version of +/-. Luka was 4th this year among potential assists and I'm pretty sure he was 1st last season. Just wait for Brunson to get traded to see how much better Luka makes his teammates look.

Tatum has an All-Star, former All-Star and DPotY on his team. What does Luka have? His 2nd best player is THJ or Brunson. The difference between the Celtics roster and Mavs roster is huge.

Yeah, RAPM is a pretty well-respected advanced on-off impact stat. Tatum is better in that (both 1-year and 3-year RAPM) as well as raw on-off, so nothing of what you just wrote disputes what I said, which is that Tatum is arguably the higher impact player.

Tatum is also better in another advanced impact stat, an offshoot of PIPM called LEBRON.

If you're looking for an overall stat that combines boxscore, impact and player tracking, then 538's RAPTOR has Luka ahead in total RAPTOR and Tatum ahead in RAPTOR WAR.

I have zero issue with anyone choosing Luka over Tatum but it's not some landslide that some Luka fans are claiming.

ofc the better defender is going to have higher impact metrics. just take a look at tatums finals statline and its embarassing he is on brink of winning fmvp when hes been inferior to brown all series long. theres no need to overcomplicate things by bringing advanced stats when he is a high variance inconsistent performer entire career. luka did suck too but this yr was an anomaly when he has a great track record against battle tested clippers who were title caliber.

[nikster]

Was this supposed to be some sort of argument that the Mavs team is as good as the Celtics? Because unless you will state that that you believe the Mavs roster is as good as the Celtics roster without Luka and Tatum reapectively, then this was a pointless take.

I've seen the Mavs win playoff games without Luka. I've seen the Celtics begin the regular season losing quite a few games with Tatum. Luka Ball proponents blame the roster, I blame Luka ball.

You can blame whatever you want, the Mavs exceeded expectations this season. They weren't supppsed to get to the WCF with the squad they have.

Clearly Luka is supposed to win with whatever roster with he has. And Tatum didn't win the last several seasons, was he not playing winning basketball then?

This is the same type of fan that would have been chirping Jordan and Lebron style of basketball as losing ball the first several years of there career

[SelfishPlayer]

I've seen the Mavs win playoff games without Luka. I've seen the Celtics begin the regular season losing quite a few games with Tatum. Luka Ball proponents blame the roster, I blame Luka ball.

You can blame whatever you want, the Mavs exceeded expectations this season. They weren't supppsed to get to the WCF with the squad they have.

Clearly Luka is supposed to win with whatever roster with he has. And Tatum didn't win the last several seasons, was he not playing winning basketball then?

This is the same type of fan that would have been chirping Jordan and Lebron style of basketball as losing ball the first several years of there career

Jordan played DPOY hero ball before Phil Jackson. Jordan learned to share the ball while playing within a system, and not being the system. Lebron absolutely played winning basketball early in his career. He was held back by his GM Danny Ferry. Tatum plays within the system while Luka is the hero ball system.

[nikster]

You can blame whatever you want, the Mavs exceeded expectations this season. They weren't supppsed to get to the WCF with the squad they have.

Clearly Luka is supposed to win with whatever roster with he has. And Tatum didn't win the last several seasons, was he not playing winning basketball then?

This is the same type of fan that would have been chirping Jordan and Lebron style of basketball as losing ball the first several years of there career

Jordan played DPOY hero ball before Phil Jackson. Jordan learned to share the ball while playing within a system, and not being the system. Lebron absolutely played winning basketball early in his career. He was held back by his GM Danny Ferry. Tatum plays within the system while Luka is the hero ball system.

Oh making roster excuses for Lebron now? "Lebron Ball proponents blame the roster, I blame Lebron ball"

So was Jordan not an all Time Great player before Phil Jackson? He was just a chucker playing losing basketball?

[Archx]

He’s been 1b to Brown’s 1a.

Mavs don't have that, they have nr2, who wasn't even a sure starter until mid of the season and they have a nr3, a former Wizards reject.

The mavericks have one of the best defense in the league in spite of Luka being terrible at that end I don’t know why Luka stans try selling all of his teammates short to prop up Luka.

Wrong again. Mavs have on of the best defenses WITH Luka on the floor. He had the highest defensive metrics in advance and normal stats on his own team and was top3 in leading hustle categories.

And no one is trying to sell his teammates short, but you have people here claiming Mavs are better without their best player which is wrong on every possible level.

If Tatum had those players on his team, one thing for certain would be that his defense would still be elite because he’s an elite one on one defender not someone who was getting torched at times by Jordan Poole and Klay like Luka was last series.

It's shocking that Tatum's defensive impact numbers are very close to Doncic's. Even though Tatum has some amazing defensive players with him to cover his back.

Also, Celtics without Tatum +4.6, Mavs without Doncic -2.6.

[SelfishPlayer]

Clearly Luka is supposed to win with whatever roster with he has. And Tatum didn't win the last several seasons, was he not playing winning basketball then?

This is the same type of fan that would have been chirping Jordan and Lebron style of basketball as losing ball the first several years of there career

Jordan played DPOY hero ball before Phil Jackson. Jordan learned to share the ball while playing within a system, and not being the system. Lebron absolutely played winning basketball early in his career. He was held back by his GM Danny Ferry. Tatum plays within the system while Luka is the hero ball system.

Oh making roster excuses for Lebron now? "Lebron Ball proponents blame the roster, I blame Lebron ball"

So was Jordan not an all Time Great player before Phil Jackson? He was just a chucker playing losing basketball?

Lebron actually changed his style of basketball his first year with the Heat. He no longer was the hero and deferred to Wade. It didn't work. No championship. He became the hero again and what happened? He got his first CHIP. So it's a process of elimination. Once he eliminated Danny Ferry and deferring to another star out of his life he became a champion. Well what does Lebron do differently than Luka? Play defense and play with extreme athleticism. What does Lebron do that pre Pippen/Phil Jackson Jordan didn't? He shares the ball to a higher degree.

[Swish1906]

Come on now, the Mavs were not a Robert Williams away from beating the Warriors...

Come on now, you couldnt check at least the box scores before your answer to my claim?

Game 2, nine point loss.
Looney 21p 12r. Mavs outrebounded by 13, Powell and Maxi combined for three boards. Looney 5 off rebounds.

Game 3, nine point loss.
Looney 12 boards. Mavs outrebounded by 14, powell and Maxi combined for six boards.

Game 5, ten point loss.
Looney 18 boards, 7 offensiv. Mavs outrebounded by 17.

Looney basically killed the Mavs in game 2 and 5 with an incredible amount of 2nd chance points created or scored by him. Had a huge impact in game 3 too.

Take away at least half of this 2nd chances for the Warriors, coupled with a few off rebounds more for the Mavs and a Luka-Timelord PnR when the 3 wasnt falling and voila.

The bolded is a solid way to start your post for no reason lol

The victim of a gentleman's sweep lost by an average of 13.25 pts (no less than 9 in any game) and that's suppose to help their case?

Yeah you should have checked the boxscores. Or the games i pointed out. Instead you come with one of the stupiest arguments ever, the average...

So with your argument a team getting swept with a 35p, 5p, 4p and 4p loss had no chance or was not even "one better player" away because they lost by an average of 12 points per game, huh

I also specifically mentioned the two losses (by 9 and 10 points) with Looney having monster games while the Mavs FC sucked. And yes, give the Mavs Williams in these games and Looneys impact shrinks for more than 9 and 10 points. And then you are allready looking at a 3:2 for the Mavs. And then there was another big Looney game that the Mavs lost at the rebounding battle.

And then you see now the Looney/Williams matchup with two games where they both neutralized each other and the 3rd with Williams outplaying Looney.

So yes, the Mavs were one Robert Williams away to beat the Warriors.

[ITYSL]

Was this supposed to be some sort of argument that the Mavs team is as good as the Celtics? Because unless you will state that that you believe the Mavs roster is as good as the Celtics roster without Luka and Tatum reapectively, then this was a pointless take.

There's a legit argument that Tatum raises the level of his team more than Luka does his. He has better impact stats, from basic ones like on/off to advanced metrics like RAPM

My friend, you need to actually go and compare their "impact" stats before you make statement like this. Tatum doesn't even have better On/Off number than Luka for the playoffs. I won't even go further into details because Tatum would look even worse compared to him.
Even their defensive impact metrics are close lol...

I wasn't comparing their playoff on/off stats this season and never said I was. On/off is much too noisy to be comparing it in such a small sample size. It's honestly borderline to compare it for an entire season, which is why I cited RAPM and, even better, 3-year RAPM.

However, if you want to compare playoffs, then Tatum has a 57.4% TS these playoffs vs. Luka's 57.1%. That's not the impression you'd get from Luka fans reading through this thread

I said it before and I'll say it again: I have no issue with anyone picking Luka over Tatum, but to say it isn't close is what's silly.

[dygaction]

Luka fans were literally pounding their chest before they were eliminated in 5 short games against the warriors talking about how much Luka has owned the Celtics (true), how the Mavs had just as good of a second half to the season as the Celtics (true), how they were saying the Mavs were better than the Celtics. Buuuuuuut

Once the Mavs got eliminated it turned to “oh it’s Luka doing everything for the mavericks, he has no help!” When the tone was completely different before the warriors series. Now it’s Tatum has way better teammates that’s why the Celtics are winning.

It’s the famous Aaron Rodgers logic against Tom Brady when Rodgers has #1 seed records, winning mvp’s, then once he choked in the playoffs and Brady kept winning titles the narrative shifts always to Rodgers not having good enough teammates while Brady has better ones even though Rodgers had superior offensive talent but his ass was just a choker in big moments against the greatest clutch player of all time.

Kobe once said you can’t win a championship playing harden ball. Luka plays a similar way with equally bad defense. Although I still would take Luka I just don’t like his high usage of the ball and his lazy effort defensively.

I like Tatum but you have to use some serious homer filter to argue Tatum is better in this finals.

In the two winning games, he combined 12fg with 40fga, that's 19ppg with 30/29 shooting split. He was not even an efficient 2nd or even 3rd option offensively, blowing layups left and right. Celtics team was just too good to be dragged down and refused to lose. Tatum's highlight game was #2 in a blowout losing effort, racking up 28pts with relatively high efficiency. Jalen Brunson was 18ppg with 46/41 shooting in the 5 games.

Jaylen Brown was putting up 25.5ppg in less (39fga) attempts with 49/38 shooting and carrying the offense in the two winning games. He is no Luka offensively but his block in the last game was impressive.

The current comparison now has to be (Luka + Brunson + Dinwiddie) < (Brown + Tatum + Smart), if you believe DFS + Maxi + Powell + Bertans = R Williams + Horford + G Williams + White.

[Archx]

There's a legit argument that Tatum raises the level of his team more than Luka does his. He has better impact stats, from basic ones like on/off to advanced metrics like RAPM

My friend, you need to actually go and compare their "impact" stats before you make statement like this. Tatum doesn't even have better On/Off number than Luka for the playoffs. I won't even go further into details because Tatum would look even worse compared to him.
Even their defensive impact metrics are close lol...

I wasn't comparing their playoff on/off stats this season and never said I was. On/off is much too noisy to be comparing it in such a small sample size. It's honestly borderline to compare it for an entire season, which is why I cited RAPM and, even better, 3-year RAPM.

However, if you want to compare playoffs, then Tatum has a 57.4% TS these playoffs vs. Luka's 57.1%. That's not the impression you'd get from Luka fans reading through this thread

I said it before and I'll say it again: I have no issue with anyone picking Luka over Tatum, but to say it isn't close is what's silly.

Fair enough, i thought we were talking about playoffs. I couldn't care less about regular season to be honest.


Close TS% will hardly tell you who's a better player/scorer between those two. You'd have to look at other things aswell.

[nikster]

Jordan played DPOY hero ball before Phil Jackson. Jordan learned to share the ball while playing within a system, and not being the system. Lebron absolutely played winning basketball early in his career. He was held back by his GM Danny Ferry. Tatum plays within the system while Luka is the hero ball system.

Oh making roster excuses for Lebron now? "Lebron Ball proponents blame the roster, I blame Lebron ball"

So was Jordan not an all Time Great player before Phil Jackson? He was just a chucker playing losing basketball?

Lebron actually changed his style of basketball his first year with the Heat. He no longer was the hero and deferred to Wade. It didn't work. No championship. He became the hero again and what happened? He got his first CHIP. So it's a process of elimination. Once he eliminated Danny Ferry and deferring to another star out of his life he became a champion. Well what does Lebron do differently than Luka? Play defense and play with extreme athleticism. What does Lebron do that pre Pippen/Phil Jackson Jordan didn't? He shares the ball to a higher degree.

Exactly my point. You would have been trashing Lebron right up until he won his first ring. Just like you'll do with Luka

[MoneyMo]

What Luka can do on offense far outweighs what Tatum brings defensively. Surround Luka with long defensive shooters and he's going to win a championship at some point.

That form of idealized Luka Ball is going to lose to the team with 5 defenders that share the ball like Tatum's team. Lebron is the only player in NBA history great enough to win championships while playing hero ball. See, Lebron's hero ball could easily be what we see in Dallas where NBA All Star players like Porzingis are blamed for Luka's failures, but Lebron turns these kinds of players like Kyrie, Love, and AD into champions. Porzingis would be a much more well regarded player if he played with Lebron his entire career.

Lebron's highest usage rate in playoff was 37.6 in 14-15. That was the year Love injured and Kyrie was hobbled since the second round and later got injured in the finals. Luka's average usage is 40.4 in the playoffs. Harden's highest usage is 37.1. Luka is far more ball dominant than them at the moment. Only Russ with the Thunder sans Durant exceeds him.

[Swish1906]

Luka fans were literally pounding their chest before they were eliminated in 5 short games against the warriors talking about how much Luka has owned the Celtics (true), how the Mavs had just as good of a second half to the season as the Celtics (true), how they were saying the Mavs were better than the Celtics. Buuuuuuut

Once the Mavs got eliminated it turned to “oh it’s Luka doing everything for the mavericks, he has no help!” When the tone was completely different before the warriors series. Now it’s Tatum has way better teammates that’s why the Celtics are winning.

It’s the famous Aaron Rodgers logic against Tom Brady when Rodgers has #1 seed records, winning mvp’s, then once he choked in the playoffs and Brady kept winning titles the narrative shifts always to Rodgers not having good enough teammates while Brady has better ones even though Rodgers had superior offensive talent but his ass was just a choker in big moments against the greatest clutch player of all time.

Kobe once said you can’t win a championship playing harden ball. Luka plays a similar way with equally bad defense. Although I still would take Luka I just don’t like his high usage of the ball and his lazy effort defensively.

No it was always the Argument that Tatum has a better more balanced team around him. And thats simply true, just think what happens if you put Williams on the Mavs and Powell on the Celtics

[GeorgeMarcus]

Come on now, you couldnt check at least the box scores before your answer to my claim?

Game 2, nine point loss.
Looney 21p 12r. Mavs outrebounded by 13, Powell and Maxi combined for three boards. Looney 5 off rebounds.

Game 3, nine point loss.
Looney 12 boards. Mavs outrebounded by 14, powell and Maxi combined for six boards.

Game 5, ten point loss.
Looney 18 boards, 7 offensiv. Mavs outrebounded by 17.

Looney basically killed the Mavs in game 2 and 5 with an incredible amount of 2nd chance points created or scored by him. Had a huge impact in game 3 too.

Take away at least half of this 2nd chances for the Warriors, coupled with a few off rebounds more for the Mavs and a Luka-Timelord PnR when the 3 wasnt falling and voila.

The bolded is a solid way to start your post for no reason lol

The victim of a gentleman's sweep lost by an average of 13.25 pts (no less than 9 in any game) and that's suppose to help their case?

Yeah you should have checked the boxscores. Or the games i pointed out. Instead you come with one of the stupiest arguments ever, the average...

So with your argument a team getting swept with a 35p, 5p, 4p and 4p loss had no chance or was not even "one better player" away because they lost by an average of 12 points per game, huh

I also specifically mentioned the two losses (by 9 and 10 points) with Looney having monster games while the Mavs FC sucked. And yes, give the Mavs Williams in these games and Looneys impact shrinks for more than 9 and 10 points. And then you are allready looking at a 3:2 for the Mavs. And then there was another big Looney game that the Mavs lost at the rebounding battle.

And then you see now the Looney/Williams matchup with two games where they both neutralized each other and the 3rd with Williams outplaying Looney.

So yes, the Mavs were one Robert Williams away to beat the Warriors.

No they absolutely weren't. That is a ridiculous conclusion to reach. By that logic pretty much every team that lost a playoff series was a Robert Williams level player away from winning...

[SelfishPlayer]

The bolded is a solid way to start your post for no reason lol

The victim of a gentleman's sweep lost by an average of 13.25 pts (no less than 9 in any game) and that's suppose to help their case?

Yeah you should have checked the boxscores. Or the games i pointed out. Instead you come with one of the stupiest arguments ever, the average...

So with your argument a team getting swept with a 35p, 5p, 4p and 4p loss had no chance or was not even "one better player" away because they lost by an average of 12 points per game, huh

I also specifically mentioned the two losses (by 9 and 10 points) with Looney having monster games while the Mavs FC sucked. And yes, give the Mavs Williams in these games and Looneys impact shrinks for more than 9 and 10 points. And then you are allready looking at a 3:2 for the Mavs. And then there was another big Looney game that the Mavs lost at the rebounding battle.

And then you see now the Looney/Williams matchup with two games where they both neutralized each other and the 3rd with Williams outplaying Looney.

So yes, the Mavs were one Robert Williams away to beat the Warriors.

No they absolutely weren't. That is a ridiculous conclusion to reach. By that logic pretty much every team that lost a playoff series was a Robert Williams level player away from winning...

I'm happy someone else provided that response. I read that post hours ago and came to the same conclusion. Outside of this thread, when has anyone ever stated that a team that hasn't been to the Finals was one single solitary non All-Star role player away from winning an NBA title? LMAO! On the low end people will usually point to a player like Brown or even Wiggins if not an actual All NBA offensive player.

[Raps in 4]

There's a legit argument that Tatum raises the level of his team more than Luka does his. He has better impact stats, from basic ones like on/off to advanced metrics like RAPM

RAPM is just an advanced metric version of +/-. Luka was 4th this year among potential assists and I'm pretty sure he was 1st last season. Just wait for Brunson to get traded to see how much better Luka makes his teammates look.

Tatum has an All-Star, former All-Star and DPotY on his team. What does Luka have? His 2nd best player is THJ or Brunson. The difference between the Celtics roster and Mavs roster is huge.

Yeah, RAPM is a pretty well-respected advanced on-off impact stat. Tatum is better in that (both 1-year and 3-year RAPM) as well as raw on-off, so nothing of what you just wrote disputes what I said, which is that Tatum is arguably the higher impact player.

Tatum is also better in another advanced impact stat, an offshoot of PIPM called LEBRON.

If you're looking for an overall stat that combines boxscore, impact and player tracking, then 538's RAPTOR has Luka ahead in total RAPTOR and Tatum ahead in RAPTOR WAR.

I have zero issue with anyone choosing Luka over Tatum but it's not some landslide that some Luka fans are claiming.

Tatum is also better according to EPM and is just a few points behind in RAPTOR. This notion that Luka is "way better" isn't grounded in reality. Tatum gets criminally underrated.

[GeorgeMarcus]

Yeah you should have checked the boxscores. Or the games i pointed out. Instead you come with one of the stupiest arguments ever, the average...

So with your argument a team getting swept with a 35p, 5p, 4p and 4p loss had no chance or was not even "one better player" away because they lost by an average of 12 points per game, huh

I also specifically mentioned the two losses (by 9 and 10 points) with Looney having monster games while the Mavs FC sucked. And yes, give the Mavs Williams in these games and Looneys impact shrinks for more than 9 and 10 points. And then you are allready looking at a 3:2 for the Mavs. And then there was another big Looney game that the Mavs lost at the rebounding battle.

And then you see now the Looney/Williams matchup with two games where they both neutralized each other and the 3rd with Williams outplaying Looney.

So yes, the Mavs were one Robert Williams away to beat the Warriors.

No they absolutely weren't. That is a ridiculous conclusion to reach. By that logic pretty much every team that lost a playoff series was a Robert Williams level player away from winning...

I'm happy someone else provided that response. I read that post hours ago and came to the same conclusion. Outside of this thread, when has anyone ever stated that a team that hasn't been to the Finals was one single solitary non All-Star role player away from winning an NBA title? LMAO! On the low end people will usually point to a player like Brown or even Wiggins if not an actual All NBA offensive player.

And it's not like they took the Warriors to 6-7 games

[Swish1906]

The bolded is a solid way to start your post for no reason lol

The victim of a gentleman's sweep lost by an average of 13.25 pts (no less than 9 in any game) and that's suppose to help their case?

Yeah you should have checked the boxscores. Or the games i pointed out. Instead you come with one of the stupiest arguments ever, the average...

So with your argument a team getting swept with a 35p, 5p, 4p and 4p loss had no chance or was not even "one better player" away because they lost by an average of 12 points per game, huh

I also specifically mentioned the two losses (by 9 and 10 points) with Looney having monster games while the Mavs FC sucked. And yes, give the Mavs Williams in these games and Looneys impact shrinks for more than 9 and 10 points. And then you are allready looking at a 3:2 for the Mavs. And then there was another big Looney game that the Mavs lost at the rebounding battle.

And then you see now the Looney/Williams matchup with two games where they both neutralized each other and the 3rd with Williams outplaying Looney.

So yes, the Mavs were one Robert Williams away to beat the Warriors.

No they absolutely weren't. That is a ridiculous conclusion to reach. By that logic pretty much every team that lost a playoff series was a Robert Williams level player away from winning...

Dude, seriously?

Talking about logic... This Mavs team has ONE giant flaw and that is size and rebounding in the frontcourt. This flaw alone cost them game 2 and game 5 at least, killed by Looney.

Williams fixes this issue. So yes, the MAVS with their specific flaw were a Robert Williams away from winning. Because he fixes the issue. Of course other teams without this FC issues arent a Williams away.

Dat logic, huh

[CobraCommander]

My friend, you need to actually go and compare their "impact" stats before you make statement like this. Tatum doesn't even have better On/Off number than Luka for the playoffs. I won't even go further into details because Tatum would look even worse compared to him.
Even their defensive impact metrics are close lol...

I wasn't comparing their playoff on/off stats this season and never said I was. On/off is much too noisy to be comparing it in such a small sample size. It's honestly borderline to compare it for an entire season, which is why I cited RAPM and, even better, 3-year RAPM.

However, if you want to compare playoffs, then Tatum has a 57.4% TS these playoffs vs. Luka's 57.1%. That's not the impression you'd get from Luka fans reading through this thread

I said it before and I'll say it again: I have no issue with anyone picking Luka over Tatum, but to say it isn't close is what's silly.

Fair enough, i thought we were talking about playoffs. I couldn't care less about regular season to be honest.


Close TS% will hardly tell you who's a better player/scorer between those two. You'd have to look at other things aswell.

Luka never going to be considered an all time great if he continues to be blah in reg season.

His playoff numbers are going to steadily decline like they did this year if he wants to win.

Then what do you have as an argument for a all time great? 6th in league in scoring 107th in efficiency and 120 in defense?

Regular season matters man

[Feed Your Head]

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