Tatum has scored at least 11 points for 8 games in a row. He's scored 11 points or more in 18 of his 21 games in the NBA. He's currently averaging 13.9 per game. For anyone, this is terrific consistency. For a 19 year old rookie, I think this is remarkable.
More remarkable still is his team defense - astonishing would be my word. Of all the mountains that rookies have to climb, this is the steepest. But Jayson plays defense like a vet.
Tatum is amazing.
Danny is a genius.
You mean... he's a genius at... the Draft?!
More like, BRAD is a drafting genius.
Danny made a genius coaching hire, and is a good enough leader to take his advise.
We’ve been noticably better drafting since Stevens joined the brain-trust, no doubt about it.
No, we’ve largely just had better and more draft picks since Stevens has been here. In 4 drafts in the Stevens era, we’ve had two 1st round busts (Young and Hunter), an early 2nd that also failed (Mickey), and another 1st for whom the verdict is still out (Yabusele). We’ve done well with all the top 10 picks, which is important, but we didn’t have those for the prior 8 or so years to compare to.
What I find more impressive with Stevens was his ability to look past Kris Dunn & Markelle Fultz, guys that nearly every b-ball pundit had pegged for stardom.
Two years straight the C’s bucked the basketball world taking guys at 3 that basicly no one else even had in their top 5.
And they nailed both picks in fabulous fashion.
To me, those two decisions are more impactful, and showed more skill of evaluation than any of Danny’s other drafts. As we all know, picking in the middle is a gamble, but top 5 is different. Being able to reach back for Brown and Tatum while avoiding busts like Fultz and Dunn, in spots where they are expected to yield a cornerstone, should be given extra credit when we look back and compare year over year.