FlatearthZorro wrote:zoyathedestroya wrote:I'm getting irrationally excited about the prospect of Tillman helping a bit in the playoffs. Could be a sneaky trade deadline pickup by Brad. On the surface, you would think of him as merely a backup big on a lottery team. But since Grizzlies have been ravaged by injuries (not just this season), X has spent over 40% of his career starting for Memphis and most of his playoff minutes are as a starter too. KP is irreplaceable but if he randomly misses a game or two in the postseason, Horford can start and I'm confident Tillman as the main backup big will fit in snugly.
Cs need to catch him up quickly both sides of the ball as he recovers from his knee injury so he can get reps post-ASB.
Bro's sadly pretty much a worse version of Theis.. Undersized, but can't shoot, not a great rebounder and not as mobile(can't shoot the 3 point either).... Oh, well, let's see.
Genuinely curious what makes you think Tillman is a much worse version of Theis?
He is similar to Theis, sure. But IMO:
a) There's nothing really that Theis does better
b) Tillman is a much better defender. One of the hardest guys in the league to defend, Zion. We had quite a bit of trouble defending Zion. He had some stretches where he pretty scored at will, regardless of who we put on him. He scored on Brissett so easily on 1 possession, it was like Brissett wasn't even there. Yet we've seen Tillman defend Zion pretty well, slide his feet to stay with Zion and block him at the rim. Most guys struggle to defend AD. Tillman was very effective in the playoffs last year defending AD. Tillman was also effective in last year's playoffs defending LeBron, a guy who obviously gives most people problems defending him.
Theis struggled defending Bam in the 2020 ECF..but when we watch the film of the way Tillman defends, he appears to be someone who could do a better job of defending Bam.
Tillman is in the 99th percentile in defensive EPM. Theis was known in his prime to be a pretty good defender but he was never that level of defender to really be seen as a defensive stopper, like Tillman is.
Looking at the film and the stats, Tillman appears to be much closer defensively to Horford-level than he is to Theis-level. And Horford is a former all-NBA defender who is playing like a borderline all-NBA defender even this season at age 37.
c) Tillman appears to be a much better passer/playmaker than Theis
d) Tillman appears to have more upside than Theis as well. Theis got to the Celtics at age 25 and wasn't getting playoff minutes till age 27, in his 3rd year in the league. Tillman meanwhile was starting games as a 22 year old rookie and has been getting playoff rotation mins since his 2nd season at age 23.
Even if Tillman is only as good as Theis, is that a bad thing? Everybody (or at least mostly everybody) thought it was a great move when we brought Theis back at the trade deadline in 2021. He played some valuable mins when Rob went down, filled in some gaps, gave some big man depth to help us reach the NBA finals. This season Theis chose to sign with the Clippers where he'd have more of a chance to get consistent playing time. But with Tillman, we got a guy who is (on the low end) as good as Theis but younger, cheaper and with barely giving anything up to get him..
