Tatum VS Luka

[Wagonband]

Tatum could've gone for 0/0/0/0/0 and 3 of you guys would manage to find proof that he is still better than Luka...

And please stop with the "he made the finals". So did Pritchard, does that make him better than Luka?

And as far as Luka having a bad game 5 against the Warriors, at least he tried and didn't fade away at the end, hoping that Dwight Powell would win the game for the Mavs, like Tatum did with Williams and Horford.

There is no excuse for Tatum, he is a very good player, but no superstar can play the NBA finals like that. Curry was crucified for his finals perfomances up until this year and they were miles ahead of what Tatum did.

He's a far superior defender, Tatum is and outside of the GSW series(which obviously we can't discount, where Tatum had 2 good games), Tatum had a better overall playoff run. Luka needs to be in shape, it still baffles me how chunky he looks with the amount of resources he has at his disposal at the NBA level to be in shape.

How Tatum had better playoffs run? He was worse in everything. Points, rebounds, assists, steals, TO, efficiency...

But but but, defence and finals!

[Mavrelous]

72 pages of arguing that a guy with better statistical impact both RS and PO, historical numbers in his 1st 4 years, ROY in his 1st year and 1st team all NBA in the other 3, always ahead in voting over the other guy, he even has better defensive metrics (No, I don't think Luka is a better defender), a guy who took one of the most dominant RS teams, and last year finalist, and destroyed them in their homecourt in game 7, isn't better than the other guy, just because the other guy is "better defender".

[MavfanAus]

72 pages of arguing that a guy with better statistical impact both RS and PO, historical numbers in his 1st 4 years, ROY in his 1st year and 1st team all NBA in the other 3, always ahead in voting over the other guy, he even has better defensive metrics (No, I don't think Luka is a better defender), a guy who took one of the most dominant RS teams, and last year finalist, and destroyed them in game 7, isn't better than the other guy, just because the other guy is "better defender".

Yep, ridiculous. And 146 of those posts have come from one person saying the same thing over and over.

[Archx]

I am seeing this in many Wiggins threads now on how he locked this guy or that guy up. Now lets actually compare with real direct matchup numbers.

Wiggins as a primary defender on Tatum.

Tatum in 6 games, being guarded 52 minutes total. Tatum scored 53 points on 37.5% FG, 43% from 3, drew 1 foul 2/2 FT. 18 assists, 8TO, 2 BLKs.

Wiggins as a primary defender on Luka.

Luka in 5 games, being guarded 47 minutes total. Luka scored 69 points on 48% FG, 43.5% from 3, drew 6 fouls 13/14 FT. 13 assists, 11TO, 0BLKs.


Wiggins did a great job of protecting Curry in those PnR's, he was a great defender overall but he didn't lock Luka up as some people are saying.
If anything, Mavs should have exploited that matchup more. Doncic hurt Mavs by running out of stamina as we saw in their 5th game, that was his own fault.
3toheadmelo already showed the twitter post and it's still true to this day. Best Doncic defender was actually Ayton who forced Luka to shoot only 42% against him.

Tatum on the other hand did a decent job distributing the ball and played better defense on Wiggins. But he still had a lower AST% than Doncic. Tatum just played more games. Wiggins shot only 36% when Tatum was primary defender and 50% when Luka was primary defender.


Their overall stats directly vs GSW.

Tatum - 21.5 PPG/6.8 reb/7 apg/1.2STL/0.7BLK - 37%FG .. 45% eFG.... 48%TS

Luka - 32 PPG/9.2 reb/6 apg/1.6STL/1.2BLK - 41.5%FG... 49% eFG.... 56%TS

[BmanInBigD]

Anybody still saying that Tatum > Luka needs to take their green goggles off or, in the case of CC, finally admit they were wrong. It’s ok, you’re not captain of the ship, yiu don’t have to go down with it. NBA is not one-on-one and to try to exchange players’s teams for comparison is just downright silly. Tatum is nowhere near Luka at this point.

[dribble1614]

just stop with this insanity. yes defense is very important, but tatum's far superior defense has nowhere near the carry / lift that doncic's far superior offense has. simply put, doncic's offense >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> tatum's defense.

doncic has put up lebron like numbers through his first several seasons and has not even hit the age of 24. he led a team significantly inferior than boston to the wcf and also had a history epic blowout win at the #1 seed title favorite suns' homecourt.

tatum just put up probably the worst finals performance of all-time and is at best barely a top 10 player, and one could easily argue him outside of the top 10. doncic is a top 3 dude.

[mpoo_sin]

Per Yahoo Sports:
"Jayson Tatum totaled 13 points on 6-of-18 shooting and added seven assists, three steals, a block and five turnovers in Thursday’s series-clinching loss.

In arguably the biggest game of his career to this point, Tatum delivered a dreadful performance and set the dubious honor of becoming the first player in NBA history to turn the ball over 100 times in a single postseason. After averaging 27.0 points on 44.6% shooting in the Eastern Conference playoffs, Tatum struggled mightily against Golden State, averaging 21.5 points on 20.0 shot attempts while shooting 36.7%. It will likely be a long offseason for the superstar as he reflects on what went wrong in his first Finals appearance."

Winning player, eh Selfish?

[Johnny Tomala]

I am a Celtics fan and for me Tatum is not a superstar. Top fifteen guy at best. I have Doncić as third best player after Giannis and Jokić.

[FlatearthZorro]

Tatum could've gone for 0/0/0/0/0 and 3 of you guys would manage to find proof that he is still better than Luka...

And please stop with the "he made the finals". So did Pritchard, does that make him better than Luka?

And as far as Luka having a bad game 5 against the Warriors, at least he tried and didn't fade away at the end, hoping that Dwight Powell would win the game for the Mavs, like Tatum did with Williams and Horford.

There is no excuse for Tatum, he is a very good player, but no superstar can play the NBA finals like that. Curry was crucified for his finals perfomances up until this year and they were miles ahead of what Tatum did.

He's a far superior defender, Tatum is and outside of the GSW series(which obviously we can't discount, where Tatum had 2 good games), Tatum had a better overall playoff run. Luka needs to be in shape, it still baffles me how chunky he looks with the amount of resources he has at his disposal at the NBA level to be in shape.

How Tatum had better playoffs run? He was worse in everything. Points, rebounds, assists, steals, TO, efficiency...

Again, look at what you wrote and what I wrote.. Tatum is the youngest player to reach 600/100/100 in a playoff run, better than Doncic in every defensive category is what I said, then you go onto say Doncic averages more pts, assists, steals, effeciency. Oh and btw before the series vs GSW I doubt his efficiency was better as Tatum shot the ball pretty well.

[KIRAG]

This thread just never die

[traax]

He's a far superior defender, Tatum is and outside of the GSW series(which obviously we can't discount, where Tatum had 2 good games), Tatum had a better overall playoff run. Luka needs to be in shape, it still baffles me how chunky he looks with the amount of resources he has at his disposal at the NBA level to be in shape.

How Tatum had better playoffs run? He was worse in everything. Points, rebounds, assists, steals, TO, efficiency...

Again, look at what you wrote and what I wrote.. Tatum is the youngest player to reach 600/100/100 in a playoff run, better than Doncic in every defensive category is what I said, then you go onto say Doncic averages more pts, assists, steals, effeciency. Oh and btw before the series vs GSW I doubt his efficiency was better as Tatum shot the ball pretty well.

Luka is a far superior player. Not sure what you are trying to proof here? If someone in Dallas had a brainfart and was willing to trade Luka for Tatum, the Celtics would do this trade in a split second. Its not close.

[Bob8]

He's a far superior defender, Tatum is and outside of the GSW series(which obviously we can't discount, where Tatum had 2 good games), Tatum had a better overall playoff run. Luka needs to be in shape, it still baffles me how chunky he looks with the amount of resources he has at his disposal at the NBA level to be in shape.

How Tatum had better playoffs run? He was worse in everything. Points, rebounds, assists, steals, TO, efficiency...

Again, look at what you wrote and what I wrote.. Tatum is the youngest player to reach 600/100/100 in a playoff run, better than Doncic in every defensive category is what I said, then you go onto say Doncic averages more pts, assists, steals, effeciency. Oh and btw before the series vs GSW I doubt his efficiency was better as Tatum shot the ball pretty well.

Difficult to compare total stats, if someone played 9 games more.

And Luka had better efficiency before the series vs. GSW too. But if you compare only series vs.GSW, the difference is just appalling.

[FlatearthZorro]

How Tatum had better playoffs run? He was worse in everything. Points, rebounds, assists, steals, TO, efficiency...

Again, look at what you wrote and what I wrote.. Tatum is the youngest player to reach 600/100/100 in a playoff run, better than Doncic in every defensive category is what I said, then you go onto say Doncic averages more pts, assists, steals, effeciency. Oh and btw before the series vs GSW I doubt his efficiency was better as Tatum shot the ball pretty well.

Difficult to compare total stats, if someone played 9 games more.

And Luka had better efficiency before the series vs. GSW too. But if you compare only series vs.GSW, the difference is just appalling.

Pretty simple, brav. Tatum was good at defense and offense. Obviously he sucked vs the Warriors, befoer that if we compare seires to series- Tatum was better, casue the D is important.
I believe Luka will be better, but he does need to be in better shape. It's hilarious to look this chubby with all the people at your disposal. Luka could be top 10, he seems kinda lazy and too ball dominant at this point. Very talented tho.

[Dupp]

Was always a ridiculous comparison.

The thread and poll was truely s great reflection on how stupid realgm is though. Tatum started off ahead getting all the love because they beat the nets and then the thread swung once luka played. Such a reactionary board this is.

[DCasey91]

Tatum is way too flawed to be even in discussion for best player in the NBA (borderline top ten). The flipside is that Luka’s potential is undisputed best player in NBA not close.

Luka is the scariest player right now imo because of how much is left untapped. He’s basically unguardable as we speak and it’s just one year of growing up and taking the conditioning as all sportsmen should do seriously as second nature and it’s ggs for the league.

[Bob8]

Again, look at what you wrote and what I wrote.. Tatum is the youngest player to reach 600/100/100 in a playoff run, better than Doncic in every defensive category is what I said, then you go onto say Doncic averages more pts, assists, steals, effeciency. Oh and btw before the series vs GSW I doubt his efficiency was better as Tatum shot the ball pretty well.

Difficult to compare total stats, if someone played 9 games more.

And Luka had better efficiency before the series vs. GSW too. But if you compare only series vs.GSW, the difference is just appalling.

Pretty simple, brav. Tatum was good at defense and offense. Obviously he sucked vs the Warriors, befoer that if we compare seires to series- Tatum was better, casue the D is important.
I believe Luka will be better, but he does need to be in better shape. It's hilarious to look this chubby with all the people at your disposal. Luka could be top 10, he seems kinda lazy and too ball dominant at this point. Very talented tho.

It's really simple,

25.6/6.7/6.2; 1.2 steals, 4.2 TO; 56.2 TS% vs.

31.7/9.8/6.7; 1.8 steals, 3.9 TO, 57.7 TS%

This numbers are not close.

[BeiBeau]

I love this thread. It was created when Tatum was coming of the Nets sweep and Luka was just coming back from his pulled hamstring. Now all these Celtics homers and Tatum stans look dumb as all get out.

Anyone who currently thinks Tatum is better then Luka just doesn’t know anything about basketball.

[CraftylikeaFox]

72 pages of arguing that a guy with better statistical impact both RS and PO, historical numbers in his 1st 4 years, ROY in his 1st year and 1st team all NBA in the other 3, always ahead in voting over the other guy, he even has better defensive metrics (No, I don't think Luka is a better defender), a guy who took one of the most dominant RS teams, and last year finalist, and destroyed them in game 7, isn't better than the other guy, just because the other guy is "better defender".

Yep, ridiculous. And 146 of those posts have come from one person saying the same thing over and over.

Is it actually 146 lol? Every time I check this thread I'm amazed he's still going this hard on these takes. You'd think he'd be a little embarrassed after a while.

[CraftylikeaFox]

Again, look at what you wrote and what I wrote.. Tatum is the youngest player to reach 600/100/100 in a playoff run, better than Doncic in every defensive category is what I said, then you go onto say Doncic averages more pts, assists, steals, effeciency. Oh and btw before the series vs GSW I doubt his efficiency was better as Tatum shot the ball pretty well.

Difficult to compare total stats, if someone played 9 games more.

And Luka had better efficiency before the series vs. GSW too. But if you compare only series vs.GSW, the difference is just appalling.

Pretty simple, brav. Tatum was good at defense and offense. Obviously he sucked vs the Warriors, befoer that if we compare seires to series- Tatum was better, casue the D is important.
I believe Luka will be better, but he does need to be in better shape. It's hilarious to look this chubby with all the people at your disposal. Luka could be top 10, he seems kinda lazy and too ball dominant at this point. Very talented tho.

What a bad take lol.

[BmanInBigD]

Again, look at what you wrote and what I wrote.. Tatum is the youngest player to reach 600/100/100 in a playoff run, better than Doncic in every defensive category is what I said, then you go onto say Doncic averages more pts, assists, steals, effeciency. Oh and btw before the series vs GSW I doubt his efficiency was better as Tatum shot the ball pretty well.

Difficult to compare total stats, if someone played 9 games more.

And Luka had better efficiency before the series vs. GSW too. But if you compare only series vs.GSW, the difference is just appalling.

Pretty simple, brav. Tatum was good at defense and offense. Obviously he sucked vs the Warriors, befoer that if we compare seires to series- Tatum was better, casue the D is important.
I believe Luka will be better, but he does need to be in better shape. It's hilarious to look this chubby with all the people at your disposal. Luka could be top 10, he seems kinda lazy and too ball dominant at this point. Very talented tho.

Humor me and name 10 players right now better than Luka, who’s been All-NBA 1st team what, the last 3 years? This could be real entertaining…hell, you can’t name 3 or 4.