Yup, he bypassed the 2-3 years everyone else has where they get the caveat of “he’s so young”. Combined that with the Eastern Conference being weaker than the West and the Celtics consistently having one of the best teams in the league and you get what we have here.
Just mentioned, but Lebron is the modern comparison. He didn't go deep into the playoffs quite as quickly as Tatum, but he made a miracle run to the finals at age 22 and didn't end up winning it all for another 5 years (with multiple really disappointing finishes in between). The amount of shit he got after the Miami's collapse in the 2011 finals (after the decision, and after two years of 60 win Cavs teams not even making the finals) dwarfed what Tatum is seeing now, but that's the closest comp I can think of in the last few decades. It seems to have faded in retrospect (just how it goes), but he was by far the best player in the league and outside of Miami, he was HATED for the decision. Combine that with not winning the title, and people were chomping at the bit to bury him.
Embiid is a perfect counter for all the unfair shit that Tatum gets. Especially since Tatum has sent him home a couple times.
I would say that a good deal of the shit towards LeBron was because he went to Miami and people hated him for that. I don’t remember LeBron getting that much heat in Cleveland because everyone recognized how awful his supporting cast was.
One funny thing here is that the teams he was on at a young age weren't that good. Everyone knows the 2018 team, but the 2020 ECF team was him, Jaylen, Smart, the remains of Kemba, and no Hayward.
You can say the same about Luka, right? I guess he's not as old, but it's a similar thing where everyone treats him like an untouchable obviously top-3 player, despite a very meh resume to this point (hopefully the Celtics keep it meh in the Finals).
I think we can all agree that this is the high point of Greenberg's career.
Eh, I don't know. I am not a Luka fan and think he's overrated but at the same time he's made the WCF two times and both times they weren't really viewed as favorites to do that. I would say that Embiid has had the more talented roster almost every year of his career but Luka's gone further than Embiid ever has
Counter-point: the Celtics beat a 6 seed with an injured star (assuming the Mavs advance) and a stacked team carried the US to victory where Tatum, again, doesn't do quite enough.
I like this notion (that players for whom a large portion of their value is based on foul grifting will underperform in the playoffs, due to the games being called differently), but Harden/Embiid isn't a fair comp for Harden. In addition to the difference in availability, through age 29 Harden had been to one finals and 4 conference finals.
Wow, that's a crazy piece of information. Thanks for sharing!
Not a bettor, but I frequently think that there's more than a zero chance that various talking heads are, and that they direct their talking accordingly.But it also seems to me those who are betting types (not me) should like the national discourse as it's going to bring down the odds on BOS and create some $ opportunities. I.e., if DAL is in the Finals, there's going to be more money than one would expect on DAL and I would expect the JT for Finals MVP to be a pretty good value bet.
This is an admirable sentiment that we should all be striving for, but the finals don't start for another week. There's only so much to talk about.
True. I'd like to talk about how I started following the Celtics in the early 80s, and if I'm remembering correctly, the Mavericks (an expansion team from the late 70s) had still never beaten the Celtics late in the Bird era. I remember being super bummed out when the Mavs finally beat them once.
Although they aren't the Mavs's predecessors, the Dallas Chaparrals of the ABA (later the Spurs) had 5 guys named Jones on the team in 72-73, the last year they played in Dallas. Talk about that.
It's not just NBA media, the national sports media is basically driven by those markets, and New York, especially, despises Boston.
I was driving the other day and flipped over from NBA Radio to ESPN during a commercial. The dude on ESPN stated that the Celtics path to the ECF was tainted as Giannis was out in the first round and Anunoby was out in the second. I shit you not!
Celtics
According to this, Cs went 11-0 vs DAL until losing March 1986. They didn't lose 2 games in a row to DAL until 1996, at which point BOS was 25-5 vs DAL.
While true, three < 50 win teams with ALL missing their best player for at least two games has to be unprecedented.
OK, but the point is that if every team had been perfectly healthy the betting odds going into the playoffs were going to be >50% that the Celtics were going to win the ECF.
And as of right now, only one team has a better all-time record against the C's. So sadly, great recovery by Dallas.
You could also say Indy had an easy path with Giannis out and the Knicks' wheels falling off in games 6 and 7. It's also true that No. 1 seeds earn the easiest path. I think the whole thing is a tempest in a teapot. If it's motivating the Celts (which Jaylen seemed to suggest in one of his interviews), then great, keep it coming.
The '87 Lakers faced the 37-45 Nuggets, the 42-40 Warriors, and the 39-43 SuperSonics. That seems worse.
The Lowe Post from yesterday? I just re-listened and I think that’s overstating it a bit. Here’s the quote:
I could have been listening with a biased ear, but I also thought his entire discussion with Herring boiled down to: man, those C's have really played an injured schedule? Did you know guys were hurt? Just not a very interesting conversation.
Call and raise: JJ Redick humiliating Felger on his own show, calling Felger's take "asinine" and going into detail on why.
completely agree with your Bontemps point. Lowe’s “oh no this will be fun” followed by what everyone was expecting was pretty great.
The lack of intellectual curiosity and total disinterest in analyzing anything about what the Celtics do well is getting ridiculous.
Indiana is criminally disrespected. They have defensive issues, but they've been an historic offense with even a limited version of Halliburton, and they were able to raise their defensive intensity in the postseason (as many teams can).
It is very strange how deep to the point of exquisite boredom he could get talking about the intricacies of the Warriors and will not come close to analyzing the Cs in this way. Fuck them all.
