I have Tatum 2nd on the best players 25 and under

[mmmmm]

When was the last time you seen Doncic able to shoot over/score against Anthony Davis or Leonard ?

Just to be clear here, in the recent games against LAC & LAL, Jason (smartly) scored most of his points against lesser defenders, not those two guys.   In the LAC game he took only 3 shots while guarded by Leonard.  In the LAL game he took only 4 shots while guarded by Davis.  Six of those 7 shots were threes.  Too his credit, he made 5 of those threes.

But he took far more shots and scored far more points in these games against lesser defenders like smaller Landry Shamet, Lou Williams, and slow bigs like Dwight Howard.  Which is exactly what he should be doing.

Tatum did 'make shots' on those two guys -- the aforementioned threes.   But Doncic also has made a few similar big shots against 'stars' that have made highlight reels this year.

I'm not here to belittle what Tatum has done though.  He has definitely been amazing, especially as a scorer, the last few weeks.

Tatum defense is also much better than Doncic

The only advantage Doncic has over Tatum, is passing. But this is to be expected since Doncic is a natural point guard

I don't disagree with these points.   But I think you may be (a) underselling how much better a defender Tatum is than Doncic while at the same time (b) underselling just how brilliant Doncic is at orchestrating an offense.

Tatum's length and athleticism are clearly far more disruptive on defense than Doncic can be -- and Doncic is a very smart defender and better than most folks give him credit for.

At the same time, Doncic is far more than just a great passer.  He 'moves the defense' with his defense and gets it to react in the way he wants and creates points not just for himself, but also his whole team.

Between scoring and assists, Jayson this year is averaging 30.5 points created per game (on 34.2 mpg).   That's fantastic.

But Luka is averaging a monster 51.3 points-created per game (32.7 mpg)!  That's beyond fantastic.

That's a gigantic gap.  Even if you factor in Jason's more recent climb in average points per game, that still leaves him far short of Luka in offensive impact.

This will always favor point guards, that are also decent in the scoring department

I wouldn't be surprised if players like Chris Paul, Kyle Lowry, Trae Young have a higher points-created per game than Tatum

But these players are not better than Tatum.  I don't think so anyways

Don't confuse Doncic with some small-guard offensive firefly PG, though.  That's not who he is.

Doncic is much, much taller than those guys and is actually averaging more rebounds than Tatum.  Both offensive AND defensive.  In slightly fewer minutes.

Look - I love Tatum too.  And I believe he is definitely on a superstar trajectory.  But it doesn't make Jayson any better to pretend Doncic isn't the phenom that Doncic truly is.

[gouki88]

Having Tatum ahead of guys like Doncic and Jokic is crazy. Absolutely crazy. Embiid and him are close too, but I give Tatum the edge due to durability. Trae Young could be on that level if his defence improves.

How is it crazy?

Jokic is not a reliable 3 point shooter. 

His team D is good but not individual D.

Good passer and high bbiq. But when it comes down to needing the clutch shot, Tatum is better at it

Doncic is a better passer. Thats the only thing he is better than Tatum.  One can argue Tatum has adv or slight adv in everything else

* my guess is that you value Joker and Doncic more because they are a center and pg?

I value Doncic more because I think he's going to be a multiple time MVP, and he's leading a pretty weak Mavs squad to all-time offensive rankings. I think he'll be a champion too, assuming Dallas don't drop the ball.

Jokic I could probably be persuaded on, but since the New Year he's averaged 24/10/7 with better defence and pretty amazing efficiency (56/37/82). Jokic is IMO the best passing big-man of the last 20 years pretty easily, and might be the best ever. However, I think Tatum's athletic profile and him being 3 years younger gives him the edge in terms of potential. Fact of the matter is Jokic has 3 All-Star calibre seasons (including a top-5 MVP vote-getting season), whereas Tatum has had one season of All-Star calibre play, and 23 games of All-NBA play. I think Tatum will eclipse Jokic, but I think the Joker right now has him pipped