Small Forward Rankings. Butler, Pierce, PG13, Tatum

[Cavsfansince84]

80s Malone was most famous for being a mid-range shooter, and the fade-away jumper, very similar to what Jordan became in the mid90s.
80s Barkley shot plenty of mid-range and some 3-pointers too (even in 1987-88 he attempted 2.0 threes per game, and 3.9 per game by 1996-97).
And Michael Jordan equally famous for high-flying drives to the basket as he as mid-range in the 80s...

Dude no. Malone developed his jump shot more in the 94+ era. His bread and butter before that was down low and running the floor. He could shoot a little but he didn't have that 15/18 foot shot in his arsenal until later on. Barkley also would take the vast majority of his shots in or very close to the paint up until his Phx days when he lost the desire to bang as much. Watch this video of Malone's 61 pt game and tell me how many of his fga are from outside of 10ft.

Watch on YouTube

[picc]

Seems to be the most disagreement on Butler. Makes sense. He's probably the least impressive regular season player, but has the highest highs in the playoffs. May depend on what you value more.

[DarkAzcura]

Seems to be the most disagreement on Butler. Makes sense. He's probably the least impressive regular season player, but has the highest highs in the playoffs. May depend on what you value more.

Tatum has been better than Butler in the playoffs in their careers. Butler is incredibly overrated in this thread, wow. Probably the most overrated player of all time simply based on the first page, lol.

He had 3 really good runs in the playoffs out of 12. Otherwise he has ranged from awful to simply good in the playoffs.

Tatum for his career has been 24/8/5/1/1 in the playoffs, and in his ‘prime’, he has been 26/9/6/1/1. That’s with 5 ECF runs, 2 Finals runs, and 1 championship in 8 years. He’s been knocked out of the first round once.

Butler has been 21/6/5/1/0.5 in the playoffs for his career, and 23/6/5/2/0.5 in his prime. In total, he’s been to the conference finals 3 times, Finals twice, and no championship runs. That’s 14 years of his career and 12 in the playoffs. He’s been knocked out of fhr first round 5 times.

Tatum has been way more consistent and simply better in the playoffs, while only being 8 years into his career. Better stats and more accomplished.

[levon]

For all the talking about George being a playoff choker, Tatum just put up a god awful choke job before getting injured. Maybe without the injury he would have rectified it, but that was rough to watch.

Anyway I think this is actually closer than people think. I have trouble separating their peaks frankly. If I wanted to make a serious playoff run it'd be Jimmy. If I wanted high upside offensive talent, Tatum or George. On the other hand I'd rather have Pierce than George on my team.

So Jimmy Tatum Pierce in whatever order, George a definitive last.

[DarkAzcura]

For all the talking about George being a playoff choker, Tatum just put up a god awful choke job before getting injured. Maybe without the injury he would have rectified it, but that was rough to watch.

Anyway I think this is actually closer than people think. I have trouble separating their peaks frankly. If I wanted to make a serious playoff run it'd be Jimmy. If I wanted high upside offensive talent, Tatum or George. On the other hand I'd rather have Pierce than George on my team.

So Jimmy Tatum Pierce in whatever order, George a definitive last.

Butler has been way more inconsistent and has so many bad runs in the playoffs, though. I’m not sure how people are ignoring Butler’s entire playoff resume because he had 3 great runs in Miami. He’s really done nothing of note 14 years in the playoffs outside those 3 seasons. Before Miami, Butler was 17/5/3 in the playoffs and that’s through his age 29 season. His last 5 seasons have been good in the playoffs, but Tatum still has accomplished more and performed better statistically.

Meanwhile look at my post above regarding Tatum. And that’s all before he was 27, 8 seasons into his career. His playoff accomplishments are pretty rare and that’s not even bringing his age into it.

[levon]

For all the talking about George being a playoff choker, Tatum just put up a god awful choke job before getting injured. Maybe without the injury he would have rectified it, but that was rough to watch.

Anyway I think this is actually closer than people think. I have trouble separating their peaks frankly. If I wanted to make a serious playoff run it'd be Jimmy. If I wanted high upside offensive talent, Tatum or George. On the other hand I'd rather have Pierce than George on my team.

So Jimmy Tatum Pierce in whatever order, George a definitive last.

Butler has been way more inconsistent and has so many bad runs in the playoffs, though. I’m not sure how people are ignoring Butler’s entire playoff resume because he had 3 great runs in Miami. He’s really done nothing of note 14 years in the playoffs outside those 3 seasons. Before Miami, Butler was 17/5/3 in the playoffs and that’s through his age 29 season. His last 5 seasons have been good in the playoffs, but Tatum still has accomplished more and performed better statistically.

Meanwhile look at my post above regarding Tatum. And that’s all before he was 27, 8 seasons into his career. His playoff accomplishments are pretty rare and that’s not even bringing his age into it.

I'm not fond of Butler's inconsistency and have been pretty vocal about it around these parts. That said this was a question about peak. I think I'd take peak Butler over peak Tatum if I had to choose a #1. As a #2 (someone else setting the table), I probably take Tatum.

But anyway I think the top 3 are pretty interchangeable. All I'm certain about is George is #4.

[benhillboy]

I can’t see anyone on this list other than Jimmy carrying a roster virtually half-full of undrafted players on deep runs in B2B seasons, one missing a 20 point scorer in Herro.

His facilitation, screening, and defensive roving IQs glued all the junky, weak, spare parts of that team into a new, deadly weapon. He McGuyver’ed that roster. Neither Tatum, Pierce, or PG can seamlessly slide up and down the positional scale from 1-3 (and now some modern 4) whenever necessary at a moment’s notice like Jim. None of them catapult the Warriors to the best net rating in the league so quickly with how specialized their offense is and how sharply you have to think off the ball alongside Steph.

I must’ve missed it but why isn’t Kawhi listed? At his peak he’s tops. Peak Kawhi slick doesn’t even need to utilize his teammates he’s so singularly dominant on both ends.

Kawhi isn't listed for that exact reason. Because this is supposed to be players who all could be argued over each other and Kawhi would clearly be the best, so there's no point.

Gotcha, makes sense.

[NZB2323]

Seems to be the most disagreement on Butler. Makes sense. He's probably the least impressive regular season player, but has the highest highs in the playoffs. May depend on what you value more.

Tatum has been better than Butler in the playoffs in their careers. Butler is incredibly overrated in this thread, wow. Probably the most overrated player of all time simply based on the first page, lol.

He had 3 really good runs in the playoffs out of 12. Otherwise he has ranged from awful to simply good in the playoffs.

Tatum for his career has been 24/8/5/1/1 in the playoffs, and in his ‘prime’, he has been 26/9/6/1/1. That’s with 5 ECF runs, 2 Finals runs, and 1 championship in 8 years. He’s been knocked out of the first round once.

Butler has been 21/6/5/1/0.5 in the playoffs for his career, and 23/6/5/2/0.5 in his prime. In total, he’s been to the conference finals 3 times, Finals twice, and no championship runs. That’s 14 years of his career and 12 in the playoffs. He’s been knocked out of fhr first round 5 times.

Tatum has been way more consistent and simply better in the playoffs, while only being 8 years into his career. Better stats and more accomplished.

I don’t know what you count as prime, but in the 2022 playoffs Butler averaged 27, 7, and 5, 60.4 TS%, 29.9 PER. Butler led the 2022 playoffs in WS, WS/48, BPM, and VORP, and was 2nd in PER.

I also don’t know how much blame you can put on Butler for losing in the 1st round 5 times. The first one was his rookie year when Derrick Rose got injured and Butler played a grand total of 4 minutes in the series.

His 2nd year Deng, Hinrich, and Rip Hamilton were injured, the Bulls still didn’t have Rose and they beat a higher seeded team that had Deron Williams, Joe Johnson, and Brook Lopez.

Butler didn’t really become himself until the 2015 season. You can certainly say he didn’t do anything great in the playoffs before then.

2017 playoffs the Bulls are up 2-0 against the 1st seed and Rondo gets hurt.

At the same time I’m not sure how much credit we should attribute to all of Tatum’s deep playoff runs. The Celtics won 53 games in 2017 and made the ECF, and then they got Tatum. His teammate won ECF MVP and Finals MVP. The Celtics are 2-1 in playoff games without Tatum, and are 16-4 without him in their last 20.

You posted a bunch of impressive stats for Tatum, but Butler is the only player to have more points, rebounds, and assists than LeBron in a playoff game. Jordan, LeBron, and Butler are the only players with at least 5 playoff games without a GmSc of 40. Butler is tied for 4th for most points in a playoff game.

Tatum should for sure be ranked ahead of Butler all time, but for peak it’s not crazy to have Butler higher.

[pushfloater]

This is tough.... but for me

Pierce
Butler
George/Tatum tie

[DarkAzcura]

For all the talking about George being a playoff choker, Tatum just put up a god awful choke job before getting injured. Maybe without the injury he would have rectified it, but that was rough to watch.

Anyway I think this is actually closer than people think. I have trouble separating their peaks frankly. If I wanted to make a serious playoff run it'd be Jimmy. If I wanted high upside offensive talent, Tatum or George. On the other hand I'd rather have Pierce than George on my team.

So Jimmy Tatum Pierce in whatever order, George a definitive last.

Butler has been way more inconsistent and has so many bad runs in the playoffs, though. I’m not sure how people are ignoring Butler’s entire playoff resume because he had 3 great runs in Miami. He’s really done nothing of note 14 years in the playoffs outside those 3 seasons. Before Miami, Butler was 17/5/3 in the playoffs and that’s through his age 29 season. His last 5 seasons have been good in the playoffs, but Tatum still has accomplished more and performed better statistically.

Meanwhile look at my post above regarding Tatum. And that’s all before he was 27, 8 seasons into his career. His playoff accomplishments are pretty rare and that’s not even bringing his age into it.

I'm not fond of Butler's inconsistency and have been pretty vocal about it around these parts. That said this was a question about peak. I think I'd take peak Butler over peak Tatum if I had to choose a #1. As a #2 (someone else setting the table), I probably take Tatum.

But anyway I think the top 3 are pretty interchangeable. All I'm certain about is George is #4.

Who is setting up the table on the Celtics? It’s Tatum. He carries the same playmaking load as Butler but is just better at it. I’m confused why you would take someone like Butler as a number 1, when he hasn’t won a championship when Tatum has won a championship as a number 1 (please, Brown did not deserve those MVPs, people over emphasized Tatum’s efficiency, when he is literally doing everything else out there at a much higher level than Brown).

[zero rings]

For all the talking about George being a playoff choker, Tatum just put up a god awful choke job before getting injured. Maybe without the injury he would have rectified it, but that was rough to watch.

Anyway I think this is actually closer than people think. I have trouble separating their peaks frankly. If I wanted to make a serious playoff run it'd be Jimmy. If I wanted high upside offensive talent, Tatum or George. On the other hand I'd rather have Pierce than George on my team.

So Jimmy Tatum Pierce in whatever order, George a definitive last.

Butler has been way more inconsistent and has so many bad runs in the playoffs, though. I’m not sure how people are ignoring Butler’s entire playoff resume because he had 3 great runs in Miami. He’s really done nothing of note 14 years in the playoffs outside those 3 seasons. Before Miami, Butler was 17/5/3 in the playoffs and that’s through his age 29 season. His last 5 seasons have been good in the playoffs, but Tatum still has accomplished more and performed better statistically.

Meanwhile look at my post above regarding Tatum. And that’s all before he was 27, 8 seasons into his career. His playoff accomplishments are pretty rare and that’s not even bringing his age into it.

The popular narrative is that Butler “got that dawg in him” and Tatum is “soft”

That’s it. Once these narratives take hold, it doesn’t matter what actually happened.

[Ruma85]

For all the talking about George being a playoff choker, Tatum just put up a god awful choke job before getting injured. Maybe without the injury he would have rectified it, but that was rough to watch.

Anyway I think this is actually closer than people think. I have trouble separating their peaks frankly. If I wanted to make a serious playoff run it'd be Jimmy. If I wanted high upside offensive talent, Tatum or George. On the other hand I'd rather have Pierce than George on my team.

So Jimmy Tatum Pierce in whatever order, George a definitive last.

Butler has been way more inconsistent and has so many bad runs in the playoffs, though. I’m not sure how people are ignoring Butler’s entire playoff resume because he had 3 great runs in Miami. He’s really done nothing of note 14 years in the playoffs outside those 3 seasons. Before Miami, Butler was 17/5/3 in the playoffs and that’s through his age 29 season. His last 5 seasons have been good in the playoffs, but Tatum still has accomplished more and performed better statistically.

Meanwhile look at my post above regarding Tatum. And that’s all before he was 27, 8 seasons into his career. His playoff accomplishments are pretty rare and that’s not even bringing his age into it.

The popular narrative is that Butler “got that dawg in him” and Tatum is “soft”

That’s it. Once these narratives take hold, it doesn’t matter what actually happened.

To be fair, for a while it seemed like he didn't have that dawg in him, I think that's a fair evaluation.

[KGtabake]

Pippen
Butler
Pierce
Tatum
George

[Rdude22]

I mean, depending on the advanced stats (for example, PER) Butler has routinely been better than Tatum (who by the same metric is about the same as Celtic's Pierce). It's just that Butler is a weirdly passive guy who refuses to take more shots whether intentionally or unconsciously. i.e. he typically averages 13 fgas, whereas Tatum takes 20 to 21 shots and Pierce was more in the 18 a game range.

Also, sure Tatum led his team in the major statistical categories in the Finals but let's not play dumb and act like 22ppg on 38% shooting (26% from 3) and 3 turnovers a game was a special Finals series. It was barely (and i mean barely) better than how he played vs GSW in the 2022 Finals

With that said, Pierce's playoff shooting fell off a cliff (compared to his regular season %) as well. It's just that nobody remembers because nobody outside Massachuetts paid attention to him until 2008.

Scottie Pippen wasn't the scorer any of those guys were. So he can be #1 if you just want to glaze him for his accolades as a sidekick, or you can have him and Paul George fight it out for dead last if you're going by advanced stats.

[nate33]

Two of these guys have been named to all NBA 1st teams. One once and the other guy 4 times.

2 of these players have won NBA titles.

The other player has put up exceptional impact numbers over his career.

It’s a good question to rate these 4.
Tatum is far an away above the others
I’d put Butler next followed closely by Pierce and the PG13

Exactly!

I was stunned at so many of the responses here, particularly the love for Pierce. Pierce has never made an All-NBA 1st team and only made a 2nd team once. So for essentially the entirety of his career, he was not considered a top 10 player. Tatum has been All-NBA 1st team for 4 years in a row and basically a consensus top 5 player for 4 straight years and a top 15-ish player in the 2 years prior to that at age 21 and 22. And he has a championship as the undisputed best player on his team. I just don't see any way he isn't the best guy on this list.

I'd go:

Tatum
Butler
Pierce
George

Butler and Pierce are close. Pierce gets the edge in durability and availability, but Butler's ability to turn it up in the playoffs is even more impressive.

[DarkAzcura]

Butler has been way more inconsistent and has so many bad runs in the playoffs, though. I’m not sure how people are ignoring Butler’s entire playoff resume because he had 3 great runs in Miami. He’s really done nothing of note 14 years in the playoffs outside those 3 seasons. Before Miami, Butler was 17/5/3 in the playoffs and that’s through his age 29 season. His last 5 seasons have been good in the playoffs, but Tatum still has accomplished more and performed better statistically.

Meanwhile look at my post above regarding Tatum. And that’s all before he was 27, 8 seasons into his career. His playoff accomplishments are pretty rare and that’s not even bringing his age into it.

The popular narrative is that Butler “got that dawg in him” and Tatum is “soft”

That’s it. Once these narratives take hold, it doesn’t matter what actually happened.

To be fair, for a while it seemed like he didn't have that dawg in him, I think that's a fair evaluation.

This is just perception. It’s not really reality. Tatum and the Celtics have performed above expectations in the playoffs since the day he entered in the league. No one expected the Celtics to be in the ECFs in 2018 after Kyrie and Hayward went out with injuries, but Tatum helped lead them there. 2020 same, as the clear number 1. He’s broken a couple records in the playoffs as well (most points in a game 7). The guy kills it in elimination games as well.

[Ruma85]

The popular narrative is that Butler “got that dawg in him” and Tatum is “soft”

That’s it. Once these narratives take hold, it doesn’t matter what actually happened.

To be fair, for a while it seemed like he didn't have that dawg in him, I think that's a fair evaluation.

This is just perception. It’s not really reality. Tatum and the Celtics have performed above expectations in the playoffs since the day he entered in the league. No one expected the Celtics to be in the ECFs in 2018 after Kyrie and Hayward went out with injuries, but Tatum helped lead them there. 2020 same, as the clear number 1. He’s broken a couple records in the playoffs as well (most points in a game 7). The guy kills it in elimination games as well.

Maybe for you it was perception, I thought after losing in 2022 was when he really started to take a turn, hope he gets back to form.

[tamaraw08]

Of the four, Tatum is the biggest, the best rebounder and the growth of his playmaking curve is the most impressive.
But JT also benefits a lot from the modern pace, Celtics coaching and shooting so many 3pters.

As a C's fan, if I was just comparing Pierce/Tatum, Tatum is better relative to his peer group and JT is better when considering both offense & defense
But, factoring for stylistic changes across eras, I think Pierce was a better scorer

Two of these guys have been named to all NBA 1st teams. One once and the other guy 4 times.

2 of these players have won NBA titles.

The other player has put up exceptional impact numbers over his career.

It’s a good question to rate these 4.
Tatum is far an away above the others
I’d put Butler next followed closely by Pierce and the PG13

While I don't disagree, I just couldn't get forget Tatum's inefficient series vs the Warriors and the Heat though.

[bisme37]

Of the four, Tatum is the biggest, the best rebounder and the growth of his playmaking curve is the most impressive.
But JT also benefits a lot from the modern pace, Celtics coaching and shooting so many 3pters.

As a C's fan, if I was just comparing Pierce/Tatum, Tatum is better relative to his peer group and JT is better when considering both offense & defense
But, factoring for stylistic changes across eras, I think Pierce was a better scorer

Two of these guys have been named to all NBA 1st teams. One once and the other guy 4 times.

2 of these players have won NBA titles.

The other player has put up exceptional impact numbers over his career.

It’s a good question to rate these 4.
Tatum is far an away above the others
I’d put Butler next followed closely by Pierce and the PG13

While I don't disagree, I just couldn't get forget Tatum's inefficient series vs the Warriors and the Heat though.

I've said this a million times and I understand no one cares haha, but Tatum played the 22 Finals with a fractured wrist and separated shoulder, and was only 24. He wasn't good, but I mean, Butler was averaging 13 points for the Bulls at age 24.

JT being so good from his rookie year has put his career under a bigger microscope than most players. There are bad moments to remember but many more good ones.

[bisme37]

Seems to be the most disagreement on Butler. Makes sense. He's probably the least impressive regular season player, but has the highest highs in the playoffs. May depend on what you value more.

The thing that kills me is Jimmy gets credit for things he didn't really do. The year the play-in Heat beat the Celtics, it was because Spo soundly out-coached rookie Mazzulla, and most of all because randos like Gabe Vincent and Caleb Martin became prime Ray Allen from the 3pt line for the first 3 games of the series. Then they cooled off and the Celtics won the next 3 games, setting up a great chance to be the 1st team to come back from down 0-3. Then Tatum rolled his ankle on the 1st possession of Game 7, Brown wasn't able to step up, and they lost lol.

And now everyone thinks Jimmy Butler destroyed the Celtics and dragged the Heat to the Finals.