Nique vs Tatum

[tsherkin]

That ‘87-‘93 stretch is interesting. By the end (1992 and 1993), Wilkins was a very clear heavy defensive liability and was never likely ever even a neutral defender. He had a solid OBPM, but was underwhelming efficiency wise on their best teams and was somewhat efficient in ‘90-‘92 and quite efficient in 1993.

The Hawks’ best offenses in this stretch took place in years in which Wilkins was not all that efficient and of course wasn’t a playmaker. One thing, however, was that Wilkins was very careful with the ball and either got shots up or got fouled. It’s still somewhat awful thst he has such a relatively poor rTS% given his high FTr. And these Hawks teams were great offensive rebounders and Nique was part of this though Willis, Livingston, Moses, etc., were the ORB engines. Their offense also fell off sharply the year Doc Rivers was gone.

Yeah, shooting will help you avoid turnovers, and turnovers do play into ORTG and so forth, as does offensive rebounding. He was... not good at making shots that weren't transition dunks. Leastwise relative to other elite scorers, anyhow. Very underwhelming in terms of 2FG% in that regard. You keep saying he had a "high" FTr, but he didn't. He recorded a single season of .400+ FTr, and was a .345 career guy, .357 in the 87-93 stretch. That is not particularly high. Not bad, but not especially remarkable. Jordan was a .411 guy from his rookie year through 91. Magic was at .489 on his career. Dantley was at .552. World B Free was at .438. Sidney Moncrief at .527. B King was at .396 from 79-87 and hit .400+ 5 times in that stretch. Orlando Woolridge was at .428. Reggie Miller was a career .402 FTr guy. KJ was a .512 guy. Wilkins was wholly unremarkable in this regard, had more in common with Drexler and Alex English and dudes like that. Not high at all, relative to other wing scorers, and that doesn't even account for big men. And yes, he needed a good PG, kind of like Melo.

Draw rate definitely mattered for the Hawks, but that wasn't Nique's doing. 89 is a good example. THey were 2nd in the league in FTr with Nique at .298, which is garbage. That was driven primarily by Moses, with better draw rates from Doc, Reggie Theus, Cliff Levingston, John Battle and Jon Koncak (though obviously volume plays with most of those guys).

But if we're speaking of offensive rebounding, we've now stepped away from discussing Nique as a scorer. He could have shot far less and the impact from his low turnovers and his offensive rebounding would still be there, and the team might be better off (depending on personnel, naturally) on a theoretical team. His shooting volume was more relevant to the Hawks, but it often causes misconceptions about his value, which came somewhat less from his scoring than it did from other areas.

[HeartBreakKid]

Haven't read the thread yet to see the counter-arguments but I think this is Jayson pretty easily.

If we called their scoring a push (I'm not sure if it is, haven't looked into it) then Tatum is a lot more versatile than Wilkins. Tatum can score from more different parts of the court, can stretch defenses with better shooting, is a much better defender and more importantly more consistent on that end, has probably surpassed Wilkins as a passer recently.

I don't think Wilkins being a better rebounder amounts to that much.

[Jaivl]

Tatum ranks #4 on Jerry Engelmann's 1997-2022 age-adjusted, rubber-banded* RAPM, which is very impressive and honestly kinda unexpected.

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* adjusting for the changes on expected score when a team leads by n points (it is known than the trailing side tends to play better than usual by a magnitude proportional to the difference in score, and viceversa)

[tsherkin]

Haven't read the thread yet to see the counter-arguments but I think this is Jayson pretty easily.

If we called their scoring a push (I'm not sure if it is, haven't looked into it) then Tatum is a lot more versatile than Wilkins. Tatum can score from more different parts of the court, can stretch defenses with better shooting, is a much better defender and more importantly more consistent on that end, has probably surpassed Wilkins as a passer recently.

I don't think Wilkins being a better rebounder amounts to that much.

See, this is where I wonder. Tatum's scoring efficiency is predicated upon 3pt shooting. When Nique started increasing his 3PAr, his scoring efficiency also hit the 55-57% TS range. And his OBPM hits the low end of Nique's prime, though as always, that's only one number. It does, however, look a lot like 86 and 94 Nique, on either end of his prime. Tatum, of course, is visibly a superior ball-handler, and moves the ball more effectively. Nique as a scorer during his prime was in that 1.0 - 1.6 range of ScoreVal. Mostly 1.0 - 1.3, but he had 90 and 93 where he was 1.5 and 1.6. I don't have anything after 2019 for Tatum, , so I can't compare. But EPM certainly likes him (8th in the league, 12th on O, and 3rd in estimated wins), so we can at least infer that his offensive value was pretty good. His raw scoring efficiency didn't stun relative to the much-higher league average than Nique saw, of course. 102 TS+, 57.8% vs league 56.6%, so +1.2%. Better than neutral or negative, but not really standout, and certainly not standout as much as Nique did relative to his own time. Of course, he's not in his prime yet either.

It does make you wonder. I think that at the same point in his career, Tatum will be better. Speaking from a standpoint of scoring... Tatum is okay at drawing fouls. He has a good FTr+, I guess, but he doesn't really stun in that regard relative to his peers at .300. His middle game is uninspiring, but he finishes at the rim pretty well and has a competent perimeter jumper. His 3pt shot is good as well, though obviously we're seeing him trend down as that volume increases. Still, he's bombing like eight and a half 3PA a game, so managing 35% is pretty good and is also a major part of why his FTr is so relatively tepid. Looking at 20 and 21, he averaged 7.3 3PA/g at 39.4% across those two seasons, so we'll see what happens this coming season. The high 3PAr makes him a very high variance player, and coupling that with his lack of draw rate makes for an interesting scoring profile, naturally. He'll be 24 this season. Nique was 27 at the start of this prime stretch we're discussing. He's got some time.

Of course, scoring isn't the only component of this comparison. The passing game and defense are large, large differences between these two, wherefore my original comment.

[No-more-rings]

Nique was certainly a more athletic specimen, and likely more entertaining to watch but I’m doubtful he’s more impactful in most scenarios. Similar to others, i’m just not really big on guys who aren’t strong passers or defenders and on top of that even their scoring doesn’t keep up in the playoffs. Nique is a lot like Melo in that regard. I mean yeah they can lead some decently strong teams in the right situations but they’re going to need an abnormally strong supporting cast to actually win a title. Tatum’s not a better scorer, but he is a much better defender and appears to be a better passer too.