Tatum, Durant, Kawhi

[Who]

Kawhi and Durant are the two players most similar to Tatum in terms of skill-set. Both are having strong seasons. I thought it might be interesting to see how the three compare to one another statistically this season.

Points

Durant - 31ppg on 20.8 FGAs
Tatum - 26.8ppg on 19.5 FGAs
Kawhi - 24.2ppg on 17.2 FGAs

Rebounds

Tatum - 8.7rpg
Durant - 6.1rpg
Kawhi - 5.8rpg

Huge advantage for Tatum in the rebounding.

Assists

Durant - 5.6apg
Tatum - 4.2apg
Kawhi - 3.5apg

Turnovers

Kawhi - 1.5 turnovers per game
Tatum - 3.0 turnovers per game
Durant - 3.4 turnovers per game

Kawhi has a big edge here. The lower assists per game and free throw attempts play a factor here. Still he has a better than 2:1 AST:TO ratio. 2.33:1.0 to be precise.

Both Durant and Tatum are below that. Tatum with the worst AST:TO ratio. 1.4:1.0 for Tatum. Durant 1.65:1.0.

Steals & Blocks

Kawhi - 1.5spg 0.7bpg
Durant - 0.8spg 1.1bpg
Tatum - 1.0spg 0.5bpg

Field Goal Percentage

Kawhi - 52%
Durant - 51.8%
Tatum 47.6%

Three Point Volume & Percentages

Durant - 47.6% on 4.7 3FGA
Kawhi - 44.2% on 5.4 3FGA
Tatum - 34.4% on 8.6 3FGA

Huge difference here both in percentages and and attempts. Tatum taking almost twice as many threes as Durant and 60% more than Kawhi. And shooting around a third worse in terms of accuracy than either one of them.

The difference in three point volume and accuracy appears to be responsible for the difference in overall FG%.

Free Throws

Durant - 8.3 FTAs at 87.2%
Kawhi - 4.5 FTAs at 87%
Tatum - 6.6 FTAs at 79.5%

Tatum is usually around 85% over the last couple of years and for his career overall (84%). So this will probably pop back up as the year goes on.

True Shooting

Durant - 63.3%
Kawhi - 63.1%
Tatum - 59.8%

Tatum was 61-62% when I looked recently so he has dropped lately.

BPM, VORP and EPM

Durant - 6.0 BPM and 1.8 VORP and 4.8 EPM
Kawhi - 5.9 BPM and 1.7 VORP and 5.2 EPM
Tatum - 3.7 BPM and 1.4 VORP and 3.3 EPM

I feel like Tatum is getting undervalued here.

[ozgod]

Added a little bit more data from Basketball-reference.

[Kernewek]

Well Tatum is undervalued relative to what, precisely? His contract? His accolades? His jersey sales?

[ozgod]

And this one is from Cleaning the Glass...it's the Off-Off stats for each player. I filtered for Wings, Forwards, Bigs who played between 800 and 960 mins to narrow it all down so I could have those three players in the list. Diff is the Net Differential of team points scored per 100 possessions vs team points allowed per 100 possessions while that player was on the court. PSA stands for Points Per Shot attempt. The colored boxes are what percentile each player was ranked, orange being above median (50th percentile) and blue below median.

[Who]

Well Tatum is undervalued relative to what, precisely? His contract? His accolades? His jersey sales?

That BPM and EPM as a statistic are not accurately capturing / undervaluing his on-court value.

[Muzzy66]

Well Tatum is undervalued relative to what, precisely? His contract? His accolades? His jersey sales?

That BPM and EPM as a statistic are not accurately capturing / undervaluing his on-court value.

If it helps, Tatum ranks third in the entire league in Real Plus/Minus, with the only players above him being Jokic and Haliburton:
https://www.espn.com/nba/statistics/rpm

Tatum is also one of only two players in the top 15 who are at least +1 for both ORPM and DRPN (the other being SGH). 

Tatum also ranked second overall in RPM last season (+9.01).

[scaryjerry]

So the 2 older players that have had multiple serious injuries are still both better than Tatum in his prime without any serious injury? Cool