blazza18 wrote:H2tObes wrote:blazza18 wrote:
Can't fault Midds for his shooting and is a more willing passer but Tatum's scoring versatility, ability to get to the line and willingness to have the ball in his hands completely raises the ceiling of our last two playoff teams.
Ok, you can say he raised the ceiling of LAST YEARS team, that's fair, I'd disagree as they still would have been 2nd round fodder, but fair enough. That's a far cry from winning the whole thing the last two seasons because of that change.
The reality Khris was a substantially better player in 18-19, as the stats and the playoff matchup proved (Tatum shot 2-7 for 4 points in game 1 of that series, and shot 2-10 in game 2 for a grand total of 5 points) and the team had deep rooted issues in the bubble last year and it would have taken much more than a very marginal player swap to save them. We all watched how far off that team was, let's be real.
You're putting way to much weight in Middleton shooting unsustainably well for a 7 game stretch. My takeaway from that series is he should've shot it more and didn't. Don't have that problem with a majority of other star players.
The ECF meltdown has a better chance of not happening if Giannis has a sidekick who showed up. I think we win that year.
We'll always have the bubble excuse but the reason we were never feared (Windhorst said this over and over) is we never had the "closer". Tatum would at least wanted to be that guy. A different role frees up Giannis and the offense even more and the "wall" doesn't work as well.
Khris didn't even shoot that well in that series, he was just better than Tatum who was ass. Your idea of Tatum (especially past versions) doesn't match with the player he actually is.
