Luka and Tatum switch places

[Pelly24]

So, some thoughts:

1. I think the "switch places" question, while it makes sense we want to do, is harder than we want to admit because each team context relies on many subtle things that we shouldn't assume someone from another place can just do.

2. I think the Celtic offense at this point are the closest thing we have to "state of the art", and they do so playing a particular style where no one player dominates the ball and every player simply has to work hard to make himself valuable in that vast majority of time he doesn't have the ball.

3. I don't think Luka is a good fit for that offense. I think realistically if he's on the team instead of Tatum, you either watch the offense get worse, or you throw out the current system, let Luka do his thing, and hope it leads to something even better than the state of the art.

4. Of course defensively, Tatum is a far better player than Luka will ever be.

5. All that together, at least for the regular season: Luka on Boston either transforms the team into something so much better on offense that it makes up for the defensive loss, or the team simply gets worse. And that transformation would be easier to imagine if Luka had a history of actually transforming the Mavs' offense into the best thing in the world, but while it appeared that he would be that sort of player in '19-20, nothing we've seen since then indicates that this is realistic.

6. From there the question is simply about whether Luka's outstanding offensive resilience (which I'll readily acknowledge is stronger than Tatum's) in the playoffs would make the difference there. It's possible it would in the right matchup...but coming off the 2024 finals, there's a question of how realistic it is to think of that as what the Celtics would need to get "over the hump". I'm skeptical, and thus wouldn't be looking to do a Luka-Tatum swap were I the Celtics.

Over on the Mavs side:

1. Moving off from Luka means completely changing the team's offense to be something not so helio, and they've been building for years around Luka, so that probably won't work out well.

2. Kyrie is not so dependent on Luka, but Kyrie also completely sabotaged the Celtics rather than recognizing Tatum was the superior player and getting in line around him. Maybe that would be different now, but I don't think Tatum would have any interest in playing with Kyrie again.

3. Defensively of course, things are going to get better whenever you replace Luka with someone who takes defense seriously every possession, and Tatum is really someone who should have already made All-D, so he'll certainly help.

4. For the regular season, it's not hard to top the value Luka provides, because his impact is super-spotty. On particular possessions he's hugely impactful, and then there are others where all he does is whine to the refs while the opponent gets an easy bucket. So yeah, regular season-wise, both teams are probably better with Tatum.

5. In the playoffs, well, the only reason to fear the Mavs is because they have a couple of offensive superstars who when they get their groove on are extremely resilient against good defense. As such, I don't really think a Tatum-led Mavs team would have the same upset-win tendency that the Mavs currently have, and would say that I think such a team would, for example, be less likely to make the finals.

If you add all that up, that's me clearly siding with Tatum over Luka in most circumstances despite Luka being clearly the superior on-ball offensive talent. However I always want to emphasize that judging Luka continues to be a hard thing that we really are going to want to see how it all ends up playing out over his career.

I've made the connection between Luka & Wilt previously. Extreme talents with problematic tendencies who care capable of moments where they seem utterly unstoppable even by the best opponents, but who on average don't end up having the day-in day-out impact we normally get from NBA superstars.

to point No. 2 side — I'm not sure what you mean. Kyrie has been readily willing to defer to Luka, and Harden and KD. When he was with Tatum in his last year, Tatum was statistically the worst ISO player in the year. He was *terrible* against the bucks. Just terrible that season. Tatum was hindered a bit by Stevens trying to (understandably) work Hayward back into the mix. But this is really big revisionist history: Tatum wasn't within three-tiers of the player Kyrie was in 2018 to 2019. Kyrie would have no problem deferring to Tatum. The issue would come in the fact that the Mavs last year, despite seeming deep in some ways, were actually a pretty top heavy team. Besides Luka, Kyrie was the only player who could be considered an above average playmaker and scorer. The Mavs weren't in a position where Tatum can average 24 ppg on 38% shooting and still win. I think there's a decent chance the Mavs don't make it past Round 2 with Tatum instead of Luka.


As for Luka's defense, the celtics' offensive approach: The mavs were a largely defensive team in the playoffs and leading up to the playoffs last year. There's no reason to think Luka — who would now be surrounded by All-NBA defenders all the time — would significantly compromise their defense if he didn't compromise the mavs defense. And so that leaves the offensive difference between Tatum and lUka, and it is massive. I don't have to explain the playmaking, scoring resiliency, etc. But basically, with Luka, I think the Celtics would've been likely to make the finals without Jaylen Brown, and i highly doubt — i actually guarantee — they wouldn't have lost to the Heat in the 2024 playoffs if Luka was there instead of Tatum, and they would've likely won the chip in 2022.

Love Tatum. Top 10 guy, and when you consider availability and portability, probably top 5. But the difference in talent and really, accomplishments and productivity here is simply too large.

[Doctor MJ]

So, some thoughts:

1. I think the "switch places" question, while it makes sense we want to do, is harder than we want to admit because each team context relies on many subtle things that we shouldn't assume someone from another place can just do.

2. I think the Celtic offense at this point are the closest thing we have to "state of the art", and they do so playing a particular style where no one player dominates the ball and every player simply has to work hard to make himself valuable in that vast majority of time he doesn't have the ball.

3. I don't think Luka is a good fit for that offense. I think realistically if he's on the team instead of Tatum, you either watch the offense get worse, or you throw out the current system, let Luka do his thing, and hope it leads to something even better than the state of the art.

4. Of course defensively, Tatum is a far better player than Luka will ever be.

5. All that together, at least for the regular season: Luka on Boston either transforms the team into something so much better on offense that it makes up for the defensive loss, or the team simply gets worse. And that transformation would be easier to imagine if Luka had a history of actually transforming the Mavs' offense into the best thing in the world, but while it appeared that he would be that sort of player in '19-20, nothing we've seen since then indicates that this is realistic.

6. From there the question is simply about whether Luka's outstanding offensive resilience (which I'll readily acknowledge is stronger than Tatum's) in the playoffs would make the difference there. It's possible it would in the right matchup...but coming off the 2024 finals, there's a question of how realistic it is to think of that as what the Celtics would need to get "over the hump". I'm skeptical, and thus wouldn't be looking to do a Luka-Tatum swap were I the Celtics.

Over on the Mavs side:

1. Moving off from Luka means completely changing the team's offense to be something not so helio, and they've been building for years around Luka, so that probably won't work out well.

2. Kyrie is not so dependent on Luka, but Kyrie also completely sabotaged the Celtics rather than recognizing Tatum was the superior player and getting in line around him. Maybe that would be different now, but I don't think Tatum would have any interest in playing with Kyrie again.

3. Defensively of course, things are going to get better whenever you replace Luka with someone who takes defense seriously every possession, and Tatum is really someone who should have already made All-D, so he'll certainly help.

4. For the regular season, it's not hard to top the value Luka provides, because his impact is super-spotty. On particular possessions he's hugely impactful, and then there are others where all he does is whine to the refs while the opponent gets an easy bucket. So yeah, regular season-wise, both teams are probably better with Tatum.

5. In the playoffs, well, the only reason to fear the Mavs is because they have a couple of offensive superstars who when they get their groove on are extremely resilient against good defense. As such, I don't really think a Tatum-led Mavs team would have the same upset-win tendency that the Mavs currently have, and would say that I think such a team would, for example, be less likely to make the finals.

If you add all that up, that's me clearly siding with Tatum over Luka in most circumstances despite Luka being clearly the superior on-ball offensive talent. However I always want to emphasize that judging Luka continues to be a hard thing that we really are going to want to see how it all ends up playing out over his career.

I've made the connection between Luka & Wilt previously. Extreme talents with problematic tendencies who care capable of moments where they seem utterly unstoppable even by the best opponents, but who on average don't end up having the day-in day-out impact we normally get from NBA superstars.

to point No. 2 side — I'm not sure what you mean. Kyrie has been readily willing to defer to Luka, and Harden and KD. When he was with Tatum in his last year, Tatum was statistically the worst ISO player in the year. He was *terrible* against the bucks. Just terrible that season. Tatum was hindered a bit by Stevens trying to (understandably) work Hayward back into the mix. But this is really big revisionist history: Tatum wasn't within three-tiers of the player Kyrie was in 2018 to 2019. Kyrie would have no problem deferring to Tatum. The issue would come in the fact that the Mavs last year, despite seeming deep in some ways, were actually a pretty top heavy team. Besides Luka, Kyrie was the only player who could be considered an above average playmaker and scorer. The Mavs weren't in a position where Tatum can average 24 ppg on 38% shooting and still win. I think there's a decent chance the Mavs don't make it past Round 2 with Tatum instead of Luka.


As for Luka's defense, the celtics' offensive approach: The mavs were a largely defensive team in the playoffs and leading up to the playoffs last year. There's no reason to think Luka — who would now be surrounded by All-NBA defenders all the time — would significantly compromise their defense if he didn't compromise the mavs defense. And so that leaves the offensive difference between Tatum and lUka, and it is massive. I don't have to explain the playmaking, scoring resiliency, etc. But basically, with Luka, I think the Celtics would've been likely to make the finals without Jaylen Brown, and i highly doubt — i actually guarantee — they wouldn't have lost to the Heat in the 2024 playoffs if Luka was there instead of Tatum, and they would've likely won the chip in 2022.

Love Tatum. Top 10 guy, and when you consider availability and portability, probably top 5. But the difference in talent and really, accomplishments and productivity here is simply too large.

To your Kyrie point, first let me say it was indeed early in Tatum's career, and so it was understandable for Kyrie not to recognize Tatum as the superior player even though he already was.

However, I would reject the idea that Kyrie ever deferred to anyone other than Luka, and his lack of deference to those before Luka was why he simply had no choice but to defer to his next superstar teammate if he wanted another mega-contract.

He didn't defer to LeBron, he literally demanded a trade to get away from LeBron.
He didn't defer to KD, he's the reason why KD went to Brooklyn, he and KD are the reason why Jarrett Allen was rejected for the corpse of DeAndre Jordan and why coach Atkinson got fired, then Kyrie immediately disrespected the next coach, and it was Kyrie who sabotaged the Nets with his silly non-basketball ideas.

I think you're confusing Kyrie doing things like calling Harden the Nets PG as "deference" when it's really just about Kyrie being a 1-on-1 player first and foremost and thus not really a facilitator.

Re: no reason to think Luka would compromise Celtic defense if he didn't compromise Mavs. Hmm. Well I'll put it like this:

When you're saying Luka wouldn't compromise the defense, it sounds like you're thinking that the other defenders on the Celtics would be able to protect Luka from getting burned, and that's of course true to a degree if the focus of the Celtic defense is to mitigate for Luka's limitations.

But on the actual Celtics, Tatum has been asked to guard all positions from 1 to 5, and was celebrated for arguably having the most impressive defensive performance guarding Kevin Durant that we've ever seen. The idea of a defense replacing a guy called upon to do all that with someone who is someone slower, shorter, with worse endurance, less defensively focused in general and less aware of the team's defensive scheme, and not having a significant defensive fall off isn't something I'd consider to be realistic.

Will the drop off on defense from Tatum to Luka be enough to swing the overall value? Debatable.
Will there be real drop off on defense though? Yes, I think that's pretty clear.

[Pelly24]

So, some thoughts:

1. I think the "switch places" question, while it makes sense we want to do, is harder than we want to admit because each team context relies on many subtle things that we shouldn't assume someone from another place can just do.

2. I think the Celtic offense at this point are the closest thing we have to "state of the art", and they do so playing a particular style where no one player dominates the ball and every player simply has to work hard to make himself valuable in that vast majority of time he doesn't have the ball.

3. I don't think Luka is a good fit for that offense. I think realistically if he's on the team instead of Tatum, you either watch the offense get worse, or you throw out the current system, let Luka do his thing, and hope it leads to something even better than the state of the art.

4. Of course defensively, Tatum is a far better player than Luka will ever be.

5. All that together, at least for the regular season: Luka on Boston either transforms the team into something so much better on offense that it makes up for the defensive loss, or the team simply gets worse. And that transformation would be easier to imagine if Luka had a history of actually transforming the Mavs' offense into the best thing in the world, but while it appeared that he would be that sort of player in '19-20, nothing we've seen since then indicates that this is realistic.

6. From there the question is simply about whether Luka's outstanding offensive resilience (which I'll readily acknowledge is stronger than Tatum's) in the playoffs would make the difference there. It's possible it would in the right matchup...but coming off the 2024 finals, there's a question of how realistic it is to think of that as what the Celtics would need to get "over the hump". I'm skeptical, and thus wouldn't be looking to do a Luka-Tatum swap were I the Celtics.

Over on the Mavs side:

1. Moving off from Luka means completely changing the team's offense to be something not so helio, and they've been building for years around Luka, so that probably won't work out well.

2. Kyrie is not so dependent on Luka, but Kyrie also completely sabotaged the Celtics rather than recognizing Tatum was the superior player and getting in line around him. Maybe that would be different now, but I don't think Tatum would have any interest in playing with Kyrie again.

3. Defensively of course, things are going to get better whenever you replace Luka with someone who takes defense seriously every possession, and Tatum is really someone who should have already made All-D, so he'll certainly help.

4. For the regular season, it's not hard to top the value Luka provides, because his impact is super-spotty. On particular possessions he's hugely impactful, and then there are others where all he does is whine to the refs while the opponent gets an easy bucket. So yeah, regular season-wise, both teams are probably better with Tatum.

5. In the playoffs, well, the only reason to fear the Mavs is because they have a couple of offensive superstars who when they get their groove on are extremely resilient against good defense. As such, I don't really think a Tatum-led Mavs team would have the same upset-win tendency that the Mavs currently have, and would say that I think such a team would, for example, be less likely to make the finals.

If you add all that up, that's me clearly siding with Tatum over Luka in most circumstances despite Luka being clearly the superior on-ball offensive talent. However I always want to emphasize that judging Luka continues to be a hard thing that we really are going to want to see how it all ends up playing out over his career.

I've made the connection between Luka & Wilt previously. Extreme talents with problematic tendencies who care capable of moments where they seem utterly unstoppable even by the best opponents, but who on average don't end up having the day-in day-out impact we normally get from NBA superstars.

to point No. 2 side — I'm not sure what you mean. Kyrie has been readily willing to defer to Luka, and Harden and KD. When he was with Tatum in his last year, Tatum was statistically the worst ISO player in the year. He was *terrible* against the bucks. Just terrible that season. Tatum was hindered a bit by Stevens trying to (understandably) work Hayward back into the mix. But this is really big revisionist history: Tatum wasn't within three-tiers of the player Kyrie was in 2018 to 2019. Kyrie would have no problem deferring to Tatum. The issue would come in the fact that the Mavs last year, despite seeming deep in some ways, were actually a pretty top heavy team. Besides Luka, Kyrie was the only player who could be considered an above average playmaker and scorer. The Mavs weren't in a position where Tatum can average 24 ppg on 38% shooting and still win. I think there's a decent chance the Mavs don't make it past Round 2 with Tatum instead of Luka.


As for Luka's defense, the celtics' offensive approach: The mavs were a largely defensive team in the playoffs and leading up to the playoffs last year. There's no reason to think Luka — who would now be surrounded by All-NBA defenders all the time — would significantly compromise their defense if he didn't compromise the mavs defense. And so that leaves the offensive difference between Tatum and lUka, and it is massive. I don't have to explain the playmaking, scoring resiliency, etc. But basically, with Luka, I think the Celtics would've been likely to make the finals without Jaylen Brown, and i highly doubt — i actually guarantee — they wouldn't have lost to the Heat in the 2024 playoffs if Luka was there instead of Tatum, and they would've likely won the chip in 2022.

Love Tatum. Top 10 guy, and when you consider availability and portability, probably top 5. But the difference in talent and really, accomplishments and productivity here is simply too large.

To your Kyrie point, first let me say it was indeed early in Tatum's career, and so it was understandable for Kyrie not to recognize Tatum as the superior player even though he already was.

However, I would reject the idea that Kyrie ever deferred to anyone other than Luka, and his lack of deference to those before Luka was why he simply had no choice but to defer to his next superstar teammate if he wanted another mega-contract.

He didn't defer to LeBron, he literally demanded a trade to get away from LeBron.
He didn't defer to KD, he's the reason why KD went to Brooklyn, he and KD are the reason why Jarrett Allen was rejected for the corpse of DeAndre Jordan and why coach Atkinson got fired, then Kyrie immediately disrespected the next coach, and it was Kyrie who sabotaged the Nets with his silly non-basketball ideas.

I think you're confusing Kyrie doing things like calling Harden the Nets PG as "deference" when it's really just about Kyrie being a 1-on-1 player first and foremost and thus not really a facilitator.

Re: no reason to think Luka would compromise Celtic defense if he didn't compromise Mavs. Hmm. Well I'll put it like this:

When you're saying Luka wouldn't compromise the defense, it sounds like you're thinking that the other defenders on the Celtics would be able to protect Luka from getting burned, and that's of course true to a degree if the focus of the Celtic defense is to mitigate for Luka's limitations.

But on the actual Celtics, Tatum has been asked to guard all positions from 1 to 5, and was celebrated for arguably having the most impressive defensive performance guarding Kevin Durant that we've ever seen. The idea of a defense replacing a guy called upon to do all that with someone who is someone slower, shorter, with worse endurance, less defensively focused in general and less aware of the team's defensive scheme, and not having a significant defensive fall off isn't something I'd consider to be realistic.

Will the drop off on defense from Tatum to Luka be enough to swing the overall value? Debatable.
Will there be real drop off on defense though? Yes, I think that's pretty clear.

Yes I could see there being a dropoff on defense. But their offense could be at GOAT levels. I'm not saying you're arguing against this, but we've seen time and time again how much less important defense is than offense in today's NBA, and that people with adequate size can ok athleticism can be fine in the right scheme. Literally, everyone made the same predictable comments about Luka and Kyrie and their defensive problems as soon as Kyrie was traded there. And yet, they were able to get a good draft pick, make a trade or two and they were an elite defense from regular season to last year. Paul George was useless against the Mavs, and ditto for Norm Powell. Ant Edwards torched the Suns and largely the nuggets but was pretty much shut down against the Mavs. Jalen Williams and Chet were already roughly all-star level players and SGA was a top 4 player, and yet the Mavs beat them in 6 games and held almost every OKC player below their standard scoring efficiency. And Luka was visibly hobbled through at least the first two games. None of this mattered because the MAVs defense locked down and Kyrie and Luka generally *at least* did their part. And they got to the finals. So it just seems odd to me to think that surrounding Luka with arguably better defenders on defense, and an all-star wing and then multiple top 40-50 players who can all pass shoot and dribble and defend, would lead to anything but championships. That boston team was stacked. They didn't even need porzingis. And they basically steamrolled a bunch of injured teams on their way there. They would've won anyway, but i literally don't see any scenario where, if Luka is there, the Celtics don't win the chip for the next few years. And if one of their other great players got injured, i think he could still pick up the slack. And the idea that he can't play with other stars is off if that's the thought, because he plays with Kyrie just fine (even if Kyrie does notably seem to defer more than Jaylen. I think Jaylen might get frustrated, but hey, Luka is good enough for that to be worth it).

As for the Tatum and Kyrie thing man, Tatum scored like 13 ppg at 55 TS% and took some of the worst shots I've ever seen. He had a negative BPM. Scored 4 and 5 points in consecutive games against the bucks. He was never the focus of the defense's attention, but it didn't matter because he just wasn't a great player yet. I'm just struggling to understand how you could think this and what, if any metrics really demonstrate that idea. He scored less points on much worse efficiency while being guarded much less carefully while being a far, far worse playmaker and having much less responsibility and just ... a bunch of stuff. i don't even think he was an above average spotup shooter. The NBA isn't like a lot of other sports where a particular role can hide a true superstar for long. If Kyrie had deferred to tatum, the celtics might have honestly missed the playoffs. I remember Tatum's biggest supporter now had like, essentially given up on him being an all-nba guy one day after or amid the 2018-2019 season. Literally Tatum was so mediocre Boston homer Bill Simmons was like, "yeah, idk." lol.

[Doctor MJ]

to point No. 2 side — I'm not sure what you mean. Kyrie has been readily willing to defer to Luka, and Harden and KD. When he was with Tatum in his last year, Tatum was statistically the worst ISO player in the year. He was *terrible* against the bucks. Just terrible that season. Tatum was hindered a bit by Stevens trying to (understandably) work Hayward back into the mix. But this is really big revisionist history: Tatum wasn't within three-tiers of the player Kyrie was in 2018 to 2019. Kyrie would have no problem deferring to Tatum. The issue would come in the fact that the Mavs last year, despite seeming deep in some ways, were actually a pretty top heavy team. Besides Luka, Kyrie was the only player who could be considered an above average playmaker and scorer. The Mavs weren't in a position where Tatum can average 24 ppg on 38% shooting and still win. I think there's a decent chance the Mavs don't make it past Round 2 with Tatum instead of Luka.


As for Luka's defense, the celtics' offensive approach: The mavs were a largely defensive team in the playoffs and leading up to the playoffs last year. There's no reason to think Luka — who would now be surrounded by All-NBA defenders all the time — would significantly compromise their defense if he didn't compromise the mavs defense. And so that leaves the offensive difference between Tatum and lUka, and it is massive. I don't have to explain the playmaking, scoring resiliency, etc. But basically, with Luka, I think the Celtics would've been likely to make the finals without Jaylen Brown, and i highly doubt — i actually guarantee — they wouldn't have lost to the Heat in the 2024 playoffs if Luka was there instead of Tatum, and they would've likely won the chip in 2022.

Love Tatum. Top 10 guy, and when you consider availability and portability, probably top 5. But the difference in talent and really, accomplishments and productivity here is simply too large.

To your Kyrie point, first let me say it was indeed early in Tatum's career, and so it was understandable for Kyrie not to recognize Tatum as the superior player even though he already was.

However, I would reject the idea that Kyrie ever deferred to anyone other than Luka, and his lack of deference to those before Luka was why he simply had no choice but to defer to his next superstar teammate if he wanted another mega-contract.

He didn't defer to LeBron, he literally demanded a trade to get away from LeBron.
He didn't defer to KD, he's the reason why KD went to Brooklyn, he and KD are the reason why Jarrett Allen was rejected for the corpse of DeAndre Jordan and why coach Atkinson got fired, then Kyrie immediately disrespected the next coach, and it was Kyrie who sabotaged the Nets with his silly non-basketball ideas.

I think you're confusing Kyrie doing things like calling Harden the Nets PG as "deference" when it's really just about Kyrie being a 1-on-1 player first and foremost and thus not really a facilitator.

Re: no reason to think Luka would compromise Celtic defense if he didn't compromise Mavs. Hmm. Well I'll put it like this:

When you're saying Luka wouldn't compromise the defense, it sounds like you're thinking that the other defenders on the Celtics would be able to protect Luka from getting burned, and that's of course true to a degree if the focus of the Celtic defense is to mitigate for Luka's limitations.

But on the actual Celtics, Tatum has been asked to guard all positions from 1 to 5, and was celebrated for arguably having the most impressive defensive performance guarding Kevin Durant that we've ever seen. The idea of a defense replacing a guy called upon to do all that with someone who is someone slower, shorter, with worse endurance, less defensively focused in general and less aware of the team's defensive scheme, and not having a significant defensive fall off isn't something I'd consider to be realistic.

Will the drop off on defense from Tatum to Luka be enough to swing the overall value? Debatable.
Will there be real drop off on defense though? Yes, I think that's pretty clear.

Yes I could see there being a dropoff on defense. But their offense could be at GOAT levels. I'm not saying you're arguing against this, but we've seen time and time again how much less important defense is than offense in today's NBA, and that people with adequate size can ok athleticism can be fine in the right scheme.

So I need to break in first here to say:

The Boston offense was already at GOAT levels last year with an ORtg of 123.2. While we know that there's no true ceiling of ORtg, and so in theory we can consider any team getting a better offense with a new influx of talent, we should at the very least make clear:

You're saying Luka will make a team better because he would make them have a GOAT offensive performance without acknowledging they've already been there. This leads to the obvious question:

Did you not know how good the Celtic offense was when you assumed Luka could make it a lot better because he's Luka?

More meaningfully though, there's a question of diminishing returns whenever you're adding a high primacy player to an already elite offense, and particularly so when him doing the thing that has impressed you so would not fit in with that existing ultra-elite offense.

Not saying it definitively means the Celtic offense couldn't possibly get a lot better, but I would suggest that it should never be obvious to anyone that making changes to the most effective 48-Minute offense we've ever seen would make things way better. Diminishing returns are a major concern in any situation like this.

Literally, everyone made the same predictable comments about Luka and Kyrie and their defensive problems as soon as Kyrie was traded there. And yet, they were able to get a good draft pick, make a trade or two and they were an elite defense from regular season to last year. Paul George was useless against the Mavs, and ditto for Norm Powell. Ant Edwards torched the Suns and largely the nuggets but was pretty much shut down against the Mavs. Jalen Williams and Chet were already roughly all-star level players and SGA was a top 4 player, and yet the Mavs beat them in 6 games and held almost every OKC player below their standard scoring efficiency. And Luka was visibly hobbled through at least the first two games. None of this mattered because the MAVs defense locked down and Kyrie and Luka generally *at least* did their part. And they got to the finals. So it just seems odd to me to think that surrounding Luka with arguably better defenders on defense, and an all-star wing and then multiple top 40-50 players who can all pass shoot and dribble and defend, would lead to anything but championships. That boston team was stacked. They didn't even need porzingis. And they basically steamrolled a bunch of injured teams on their way there. They would've won anyway, but i literally don't see any scenario where, if Luka is there, the Celtics don't win the chip for the next few years. And if one of their other great players got injured, i think he could still pick up the slack. And the idea that he can't play with other stars is off if that's the thought, because he plays with Kyrie just fine (even if Kyrie does notably seem to defer more than Jaylen. I think Jaylen might get frustrated, but hey, Luka is good enough for that to be worth it).

So broadly here what you're pointing to is the fact that the Mavs got to the Finals last year despite skepticism. This is definitely a big feather in the cap of Luka, Kyrie, and the plan in general and I don't want talk like it wasn't an accomplishment.

Re: Celtics stacked, didn't even need Porzingis. I think it's worth really thinking about what "stacked" means here.

Horford was a guy who after leaving Boston the first time couldn't find a way to really thrive on two other teams before he came back to Boston as part of a package that allowed them to get rid of Kemba Walker. Literally this is a case where Horford wouldn't be what he is most places, and that has everything to do with why Boston was able to get him back while getting rid of an albatross.

White was a non-all-star playing on a relatively small second contract because no one tried all that hard to steal him away from his lottery team.

Holiday was a guy that the Bucks thought they needed to get rid of in order to compete for a title again.

This is, in other words, absolutely not a super-team in the sense that a bunch of big time stars chose to go play together. The choice to go after these guys, and have them play a certain way, was super-smart of course, and not something Tatum should be credited with...but Tatum being trained to play in that same Celtic scheme so that these type of players can be super-valuable is central to why it all works.

As I said above, Derrick White literally passes the ball more than Luka Doncic right now while receiving the ball less than Luka. Is Luka going to be going to any team to be a secondary passer? Unlikely. More likely is that White's touches go way down if Luka shows up.

This gets to the heart of the issue for me: You can't run a scheme which pushes the playmaking of your role players by forcing them to play with a guy who likes to hold on to it himself. To max out a guy like White, Luka would have to change what he does. Is Luka really going to be game to do that for role players on a new team when his role playing teammates do so little of that now?

Last note I'll say here: I'm really not very impressed with Brown. I thought that what happened with the Olympics was telling. Holiday & White making the team over him wasn't some vendetta against Brown, it was the fact they are both better team players than Brown - and the same is true for Horford. Brown's a better high primacy scorer than those guys, and so it makes sense for him to be higher profile on the Celtics, but he really has no idea how lucky he is to be allowed to do this.

I mentioned earlier that Tatum & White are pass-to-others-more-than-pass-to-guys unlike Luka. Well, Brown is like Luka on that front, except worse in basically every practical on-ball way despite his superior agility. Hence, while if someone asked "Replace Brown with X, do the Celtics still win the title?", I'd say "Yes" for basically any player people would likely to ask about, it's different when you replace a quick-to-pass start with a less-quick-to-pass guy and force him to share primacy with Brown.

And in terms of the Mavs being implied as "not stacked", well, aside from the fact that they had Porzingis, have Kyrie, acquired Klay, and have young guys like PJ & Lively who were pretty major prospects not too long ago, there's also the matter that Luka's this year and most years have been teams that outscore opponents when he's on the bench. It's over-simplistic to say that they'd be able to be a winning team without Luka, but from a perspective of "terrible supporting cast performance", Luka really has no history of having to deal with that the way many stars do.

As for the Tatum and Kyrie thing man, Tatum scored like 13 ppg at 55 TS% and took some of the worst shots I've ever seen. He had a negative BPM. Scored 4 and 5 points in consecutive games against the bucks. He was never the focus of the defense's attention, but it didn't matter because he just wasn't a great player yet. I'm just struggling to understand how you could think this and what, if any metrics really demonstrate that idea. He scored less points on much worse efficiency while being guarded much less carefully while being a far, far worse playmaker and having much less responsibility and just ... a bunch of stuff. i don't even think he was an above average spotup shooter. The NBA isn't like a lot of other sports where a particular role can hide a true superstar for long. If Kyrie had deferred to tatum, the celtics might have honestly missed the playoffs. I remember Tatum's biggest supporter now had like, essentially given up on him being an all-nba guy one day after or amid the 2018-2019 season. Literally Tatum was so mediocre Boston homer Bill Simmons was like, "yeah, idk." lol.

Okay, I need to walk this back a little bit.

I'm not intending to say that Day 1 rookie Tatum was better than Kyrie.
I'm also not actually looking to say that Kyrie's scoring volume should have been handed over to Kyrie at any point in their time together.

But in the '17-18 playoffs, where the Celtics almost got to the finals with no Kyrie, Tatum was the team's leading scorer on efficient shot taking.

Then '18-19 came along, Kyrie came back, Tatum's volume & efficiency went down, the team got worse in the RS with Kyrie talking about only the playoffs mattered, and then the playoffs came and the Celtics got smashed with a high primacy Kyrie insisting he take the lead not just on shooting and playmaking, but in attempting to guard Giannis himself.

This then to say that it's '18-19 where Kyrie embarrassed himself, whereas in '17-18 the only thing embarrassing was the fact that the team seemed to do just fine after Kyrie got hurt.

[Texas Chuck]

Plug and Play isn't a thing.

I tend to agree with Doc on his conclusions--Boston shouldn't do this period and Dallas shouldn't do it because they aren't a dominant team and need the upset potential Luka provides that Tatum doesn't.

I get there a bit differently, but yeah.

[capfan33]

Good points here on both sides. Maybe the best way I can sum it up is there's no way Tatum can come close to replicating what Luka does offensively for the Mavs. Luka has a much better offensive skillset than Tatum and also is a perfectly fine if not above-average defender when engaged, which would be significantly easier for him to do in Boston.

I'm not guaranteeing it would be a perfect fit from day 1, but I think he would make it work on the Celtics lol.

[Pelly24]

To your Kyrie point, first let me say it was indeed early in Tatum's career, and so it was understandable for Kyrie not to recognize Tatum as the superior player even though he already was.

However, I would reject the idea that Kyrie ever deferred to anyone other than Luka, and his lack of deference to those before Luka was why he simply had no choice but to defer to his next superstar teammate if he wanted another mega-contract.

He didn't defer to LeBron, he literally demanded a trade to get away from LeBron.
He didn't defer to KD, he's the reason why KD went to Brooklyn, he and KD are the reason why Jarrett Allen was rejected for the corpse of DeAndre Jordan and why coach Atkinson got fired, then Kyrie immediately disrespected the next coach, and it was Kyrie who sabotaged the Nets with his silly non-basketball ideas.

I think you're confusing Kyrie doing things like calling Harden the Nets PG as "deference" when it's really just about Kyrie being a 1-on-1 player first and foremost and thus not really a facilitator.

Re: no reason to think Luka would compromise Celtic defense if he didn't compromise Mavs. Hmm. Well I'll put it like this:

When you're saying Luka wouldn't compromise the defense, it sounds like you're thinking that the other defenders on the Celtics would be able to protect Luka from getting burned, and that's of course true to a degree if the focus of the Celtic defense is to mitigate for Luka's limitations.

But on the actual Celtics, Tatum has been asked to guard all positions from 1 to 5, and was celebrated for arguably having the most impressive defensive performance guarding Kevin Durant that we've ever seen. The idea of a defense replacing a guy called upon to do all that with someone who is someone slower, shorter, with worse endurance, less defensively focused in general and less aware of the team's defensive scheme, and not having a significant defensive fall off isn't something I'd consider to be realistic.

Will the drop off on defense from Tatum to Luka be enough to swing the overall value? Debatable.
Will there be real drop off on defense though? Yes, I think that's pretty clear.

Yes I could see there being a dropoff on defense. But their offense could be at GOAT levels. I'm not saying you're arguing against this, but we've seen time and time again how much less important defense is than offense in today's NBA, and that people with adequate size can ok athleticism can be fine in the right scheme.

So I need to break in first here to say:

The Boston offense was already at GOAT levels last year with an ORtg of 123.2. While we know that there's no true ceiling of ORtg, and so in theory we can consider any team getting a better offense with a new influx of talent, we should at the very least make clear:

You're saying Luka will make a team better because he would make them have a GOAT offensive performance without acknowledging they've already been there. This leads to the obvious question:

Did you not know how good the Celtic offense was when you assumed Luka could make it a lot better because he's Luka?

More meaningfully though, there's a question of diminishing returns whenever you're adding a high primacy player to an already elite offense, and particularly so when him doing the thing that has impressed you so would not fit in with that existing ultra-elite offense.

Not saying it definitively means the Celtic offense couldn't possibly get a lot better, but I would suggest that it should never be obvious to anyone that making changes to the most effective 48-Minute offense we've ever seen would make things way better. Diminishing returns are a major concern in any situation like this.

Literally, everyone made the same predictable comments about Luka and Kyrie and their defensive problems as soon as Kyrie was traded there. And yet, they were able to get a good draft pick, make a trade or two and they were an elite defense from regular season to last year. Paul George was useless against the Mavs, and ditto for Norm Powell. Ant Edwards torched the Suns and largely the nuggets but was pretty much shut down against the Mavs. Jalen Williams and Chet were already roughly all-star level players and SGA was a top 4 player, and yet the Mavs beat them in 6 games and held almost every OKC player below their standard scoring efficiency. And Luka was visibly hobbled through at least the first two games. None of this mattered because the MAVs defense locked down and Kyrie and Luka generally *at least* did their part. And they got to the finals. So it just seems odd to me to think that surrounding Luka with arguably better defenders on defense, and an all-star wing and then multiple top 40-50 players who can all pass shoot and dribble and defend, would lead to anything but championships. That boston team was stacked. They didn't even need porzingis. And they basically steamrolled a bunch of injured teams on their way there. They would've won anyway, but i literally don't see any scenario where, if Luka is there, the Celtics don't win the chip for the next few years. And if one of their other great players got injured, i think he could still pick up the slack. And the idea that he can't play with other stars is off if that's the thought, because he plays with Kyrie just fine (even if Kyrie does notably seem to defer more than Jaylen. I think Jaylen might get frustrated, but hey, Luka is good enough for that to be worth it).

So broadly here what you're pointing to is the fact that the Mavs got to the Finals last year despite skepticism. This is definitely a big feather in the cap of Luka, Kyrie, and the plan in general and I don't want talk like it wasn't an accomplishment.

Re: Celtics stacked, didn't even need Porzingis. I think it's worth really thinking about what "stacked" means here.

Horford was a guy who after leaving Boston the first time couldn't find a way to really thrive on two other teams before he came back to Boston as part of a package that allowed them to get rid of Kemba Walker. Literally this is a case where Horford wouldn't be what he is most places, and that has everything to do with why Boston was able to get him back while getting rid of an albatross.

White was a non-all-star playing on a relatively small second contract because no one tried all that hard to steal him away from his lottery team.

Holiday was a guy that the Bucks thought they needed to get rid of in order to compete for a title again.

This is, in other words, absolutely not a super-team in the sense that a bunch of big time stars chose to go play together. The choice to go after these guys, and have them play a certain way, was super-smart of course, and not something Tatum should be credited with...but Tatum being trained to play in that same Celtic scheme so that these type of players can be super-valuable is central to why it all works.

As I said above, Derrick White literally passes the ball more than Luka Doncic right now while receiving the ball less than Luka. Is Luka going to be going to any team to be a secondary passer? Unlikely. More likely is that White's touches go way down if Luka shows up.

This gets to the heart of the issue for me: You can't run a scheme which pushes the playmaking of your role players by forcing them to play with a guy who likes to hold on to it himself. To max out a guy like White, Luka would have to change what he does. Is Luka really going to be game to do that for role players on a new team when his role playing teammates do so little of that now?

Last note I'll say here: I'm really not very impressed with Brown. I thought that what happened with the Olympics was telling. Holiday & White making the team over him wasn't some vendetta against Brown, it was the fact they are both better team players than Brown - and the same is true for Horford. Brown's a better high primacy scorer than those guys, and so it makes sense for him to be higher profile on the Celtics, but he really has no idea how lucky he is to be allowed to do this.

I mentioned earlier that Tatum & White are pass-to-others-more-than-pass-to-guys unlike Luka. Well, Brown is like Luka on that front, except worse in basically every practical on-ball way despite his superior agility. Hence, while if someone asked "Replace Brown with X, do the Celtics still win the title?", I'd say "Yes" for basically any player people would likely to ask about, it's different when you replace a quick-to-pass start with a less-quick-to-pass guy and force him to share primacy with Brown.

And in terms of the Mavs being implied as "not stacked", well, aside from the fact that they had Porzingis, have Kyrie, acquired Klay, and have young guys like PJ & Lively who were pretty major prospects not too long ago, there's also the matter that Luka's this year and most years have been teams that outscore opponents when he's on the bench. It's over-simplistic to say that they'd be able to be a winning team without Luka, but from a perspective of "terrible supporting cast performance", Luka really has no history of having to deal with that the way many stars do.

As for the Tatum and Kyrie thing man, Tatum scored like 13 ppg at 55 TS% and took some of the worst shots I've ever seen. He had a negative BPM. Scored 4 and 5 points in consecutive games against the bucks. He was never the focus of the defense's attention, but it didn't matter because he just wasn't a great player yet. I'm just struggling to understand how you could think this and what, if any metrics really demonstrate that idea. He scored less points on much worse efficiency while being guarded much less carefully while being a far, far worse playmaker and having much less responsibility and just ... a bunch of stuff. i don't even think he was an above average spotup shooter. The NBA isn't like a lot of other sports where a particular role can hide a true superstar for long. If Kyrie had deferred to tatum, the celtics might have honestly missed the playoffs. I remember Tatum's biggest supporter now had like, essentially given up on him being an all-nba guy one day after or amid the 2018-2019 season. Literally Tatum was so mediocre Boston homer Bill Simmons was like, "yeah, idk." lol.

Okay, I need to walk this back a little bit.

I'm not intending to say that Day 1 rookie Tatum was better than Kyrie.
I'm also not actually looking to say that Kyrie's scoring volume should have been handed over to Kyrie at any point in their time together.

But in the '17-18 playoffs, where the Celtics almost got to the finals with no Kyrie, Tatum was the team's leading scorer on efficient shot taking.

Then '18-19 came along, Kyrie came back, Tatum's volume & efficiency went down, the team got worse in the RS with Kyrie talking about only the playoffs mattered, and then the playoffs came and the Celtics got smashed with a high primacy Kyrie insisting he take the lead not just on shooting and playmaking, but in attempting to guard Giannis himself.

This then to say that it's '18-19 where Kyrie embarrassed himself, whereas in '17-18 the only thing embarrassing was the fact that the team seemed to do just fine after Kyrie got hurt.

To Kyrie point: I have to say, that Bucks series was awful, and I think more than maybe even any real skill limitation, it showed someone who has real mental and emotional lapses (i think he might not have them as much now). He literally looked like a mad man trying to guard Giannis. I don't understand what he was doing. For the rookie season, yes the team was doing welll, but that was probably the eastern conference at its weakest. LeBron getting that team to the finals is kind of astonishing, but it sort of feels like if you put prime harden or Westbrook there, it maybe still happens. It was just that there were no real top 10 players aside from Giannis and Lebron, and Giannis didn't have the help needed to get it done. last year of baby bucks.


For the Boston offense thing, I know their offense was already incredible. I guess there would possibly be diminishing returns with his playstyle, but I also think it's an unbeatable fail safe. I think if this Boston team had played against prime LeBron and DWade, for instance, they might have gotten beat in six games, because LeBron and Wade are a lot better than Tatum and Brown.

In the case of Luka and Jaylen, White, all those guys — I don't think anyone is significantly better than Luka, basically, ever. The Boston team is super well balanced, but even if most of that failed or were neutralized, you'd still have an offensive player who is essentially unstoppable to bail you out in a way that Tatum can't. I also think they'd potentially better equipped to weather injuries without losing too much. Luka is basically the best playmaker in the league and the best scorer in the league (usually).

Luka hasn't had truly awful teams, but this is the first extended time he's had a second option that can play different roles, lead a series in scoring, run an offense, not completely compromise a defense, etc. Porzingis just wasn't available enough and was too limited in how he could score. The tertiary guys were also questionable. This mavs team isn't overwhelmingly stacked, but it's what I would say a very sound and well-rounded contending kind of team *this year* more than last. There's no great third option, but collectively, Klay, PJ Washington and Lively and Gafford are good tertiary scorers along with Grimes and Dinwiddie.

But i've just seen Luka basically outplay or easily match Kawhi and Luka with severely outmatched teammates and sort of beat the odds so much, he's in my category where, if teams are remotely even, he'll always win unless it's against prime MJ, LeBron, Jokic or prime Shaq and Kobe. I don't have Tatum in that category, i think he's closer to a better Paul Pierce (admittedly, maybe a prime Kobe tier) than that sort of Godly level Luka has shown to be able to reach. When you can get *those* players, losing a bit of other stuff is always worth it.

[Mavrelous]

Celtics team is a product of 7 years of building process, lots of trial and error and same management and coaching philosphy built on promotions from within, built around Tatum and Brown, not Luka, Jokic, SGA or Giannis would improve it obviousely.
I don't think Tatum goes to.the WCF in 2022, o takes the Clippers to 7 in 21 with dysfunctional Brunson, and hobbled KP, he just isn't this type of floor raiser.

[Pelly24]

Celtics team is a product of 7 years of building process, lots of trial and error and same management and coaching philosphy built on promotions from within, built around Tatum and Brown, not Luka, Jokic, SGA or Giannis would improve it obviousely.
I don't think Tatum goes to.the WCF in 2022, o takes the Clippers to 7 in 21 with dysfunctional Brunson, and hobbled KP, he just isn't this type of floor raiser.

That's what I'm saying. The true, true superstars — the GOATS, i guess — have an inevitability to them. They're pretty much irrepressible at the end of the day. Tatum has never beaten the odds in this way and he's always had a very very solid team around him. A good No. 2 option, decent No. 3 option, backup point guards, DPOY, other defenders, etc. With all that in mind, he's always pretty much done what's he's supposed to do. He'll get you an efficient 25 ppg and it will carry over into the playoffs, and he'll supplement that with great multi-positional defense and what I consider some pretty solid playmaking at times. He's like at the cutoff of the level you need to be to win a championship as a player, but he's not someone that could — i think — be a championship guy on a really flawed roster with even a good No. 2 option. I don't think he makes the finals if he were in Luka's place. I think him and jaylen in swapped positions lose to OKC because there wasn't nearly enough playmaking and actual tertiary scorers to get it done. Luka and kyrie wee able to win cause they can both pick teams apart with passing and shotmaking, and luka is also just unstoppable in a way i haven't seen from tatum. I don't see Tatum replicating any of what Luka has done. But with luka in tatum's place, you're essentially just upgrading nearly all of his teammates, coach and organization. There's no sensible way to think the celtics wouldn't have *at least* a championship, if not multiple if they switched places.