I mentioned something like Embiid, Bolden for Tatum, Theis, Kanter, Langford, and Poirier the other day. I'd still do that.
Might just be me but...
I actually would rather have Tatum over Embiid. I would rather pair the two up because their good friends and have great chemistry in the off-season.
It's not just you. I'd rather have Tatum too. I want to stay a very good team for a long time and Tatum seems a lot more conducive to that.
I'd rather win titles and in that I think Embiid gets us a lot closer, especially while Walker and Hayward are still relevant.
That's cool, until his body breaks down to the point where he can barely play half a season.
I think he has a good 5 years of elite play and another 3 of decent play, but frankly he might only need 2 more years of elite play to get Boston a title. I think a top 5 of Embiid, Walker, Brown, Hayward, and Smart is the favorite next year. Certainly on par with Milwaukee and the 2 LA teams. Boston is title town, not the town of very good
I'd prefer to have a decent shot at a title for 10 years over having a great shot at a title for a couple years. I'm all set with the constant rebuilding and reconfiguring. Our 2008 title was awesome but I wish we got KG and Ray a few years earlier because the run was too short and before long we had to start from scratch. I don't want to go back to having meaningless seasons for a very long time.
Tatum would have to be a good deal better than Pierce though for what you are suggesting. Like a pretty decent measure up from Pierce's prime. Hopefully he ends up that good, and he definitely has that potential, but that is far from a given. Embiid has already had a peak more impactful than Pierce. You put a player better than Pierce with Walker, Brown, Hayward, and Smart and that is a clear title level team for the next 3 or 4 seasons. I'd just worry that by the time Tatum reaches his prime that the team around him just won't be good enough to truly and really compete. Brown should be a solid #2 type player, but Tatum and Brown likely aren't good enough on their own unless they both hit their ceilings and I think it would be very difficult to depend on finding great supporting players when Boston will only be drafting in the 20's.
Did I really just read that a guy who never made it out of the second round had a “peak more impactful” than a finals mvp? A guy with a career high of 63 games who has never made it through a single playoff run healthy? Embiid only has a single season he even received mvp votes and pierce has a same top 7 finish. Given embiid has regressed this season not sure how anyone can make these comments with a straight face
I'm actually with Moranis here about Embiid having a better peak season than Pierce already. Votes are really unreliable when it comes to evaluating how good a player is, I think Embiid's massive defensive impact combined with his very good offence puts him into the lower level MVP category alongside guys like Harden and pre 2020 Kawhi while Pierce was really never an MVP calibre player (yes he got votes, but his floor raising was never comparable to the true MVP behemoths like Shaq/Duncan/Garnett/Bron/Kobe/Nash in the '00s, and his ceiling raising was good but not spectacular).
I get what your saying, but you are grading hypothetical at this point. Like a peak has to be a whole season right? Otherwise you can get into silly ness like who had a better month. So in reality embids best season he hasn’t been able to play in every playoff game and missed 20 regular season games. You can’t say that is more of an impact than a year pierce played in every playoff game and won finals mvp. Pierce obviously had More of an impact in the 100+ games of that season including 20 playoffs games than Embiid did in his 70 or whatever. Could Embiid have a higher peak if he could stay on the court? Sure, it’s just never happened so for the time being the comment is asinine in my opinion
I mean all player evaluations are hypotheticals. And it's asinine for you to just dismiss Embiid's 2019 season, missing 20 RS games as well as getting banged up in the playoffs definitely dents his value, but he was still available for almost every playoff game his team played (he only missed one game lol) and provided massive lift to the Sixers as a two way anchor when his team needed him the most. That to me beats out Pierce's peak seasons in '06 and '08 even when I take injuries into account, I think the defensive gap is massive.
You are arguing that Joel Embid had a huge impact in the 2018-2019 playoffs when his team was upset in 5 games to a heavy underdog missing it's top two players in the second round? When Embid shot 42% from the field and 32% from three and had 3.5 turnovers per game? Worse you are arguing he had a bigger impact in 11 games playing 30 minutes per game (cause he is always fat and out of shape) compared to the 38 minutes Pierce was able to take on?
And to top this all off it is not like he was in a situation where his team lost cause he was the only good player. They had significantly more talent than a team than that celtics team and underachieved. Really tough argument to make that was a peak for impact.
And one final thing... are you forgetting how much Pierce was guarding Kobe in his 38 minutes... it wasn't like Pierce was James Harden on Defense during those runs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUB0KFTCntg
Um, Philadelphia lost in 7 games on a buzzer beater to the eventual NBA champions in the 2018-19 playoffs and in that game 7, Philadelphia was +10 in Embiid's 45 minutes 12 seconds, and -12 in the 2 minutes, 48 seconds he was on the bench. In fact, Philadelphia was +89 with Embiid on the floor and -108 when he was on the bench. He played 237 minutes and sat for 99 minutes. You aren't going to find many players in the history of the sport with a more impactful series.
But to my overall point, Embiid has been a 2nd Team All NBA and 2nd Team All Defense each of the last 2 seasons (and he only wasn't 1st Team All Defense because of Gobert). Pierce never made an All Defense Team and had just 1 2nd Team All NBA in his entire career. Embiid's advanced metrics are better than Pierce on things like WS/48, +-, on/off +- per 100, etc. Obviously his injury issues are real, but when Embiid is on the court, he has more impact than Pierce did. Embiid is a top 10 player in the league, Pierce never was and Pierce never was in a very large part because he was an average defender. Embiid is one of the best defensive players in the league (2nd and 4th in DPOY voting the last 2 seasons).
And Embiid's minutes are done some, but his per minute production is pretty darn similar to last year. He also shooting better from 3 this year and a slight increase from the line (though has had a large drop from 2). His TRB% is up slightly, his STL% is up, his WS/48 are up, most of his other rates while down some haven't moved much. This idea that Embiid has dropped off a cliff from a production standpoint is a strange one. His numbers are pretty close and in line with last year. Even the Sixers are winning the games he plays at a fairly similar rate (67% last year to 64% this year). Now his % of games played is down about 7% from last year, which will equate to 5 or 6 extra games if he keeps that pace up. That should be the only real issue of concern. And it is a real concern, but what shouldn't be a concern is Embiid's impact. His impact, even still, is fantastic when he is on the floor.