As I've been saying for years, Boston should be doing everything possible to maximize the Jayson Tatum championship window. If that means they sell, they should. If that means they buy, they should. If that means they do nothing, well maybe they shouldn't do that, but if that truly does, then they should. This team needs to maximize Tatum. They've needed to do it since basically the summer after his rookie year, and they just haven't done it. Tatum is Boston's shot at a title. Maximize his chances of leading the team to that goal.
You’re Tatum’s biggest fan — by far. Do you have any friends that are fans of other teams? You could use some perspective. Tatum is a nice piece but he isn’t LeBron. Tatum’s absolute ceiling is Kawhi or PG — a guy you still need considerable other all stars around to have a tiny shot at winning anything.
Earlier this week, Cowherd called him the 11th best player in the game. ESPN at the start of the year had him at 9. I live outside of Cleveland, and they would all basically trade their entire team for Tatum. Tatum is a monster in the making and he is just 22 in year 4. I agree he isn't Lebron (no one is), but he absolutely has top 3 player potential and will most likely be an annual contender for MVP. He is a future franchise player. You can watch his game and see this. He is an excellent shooter, solid rebounder, developing play maker, and a plus defender (not elite, but certainly good enough). Tatum has all of the tools. He is also by far the most important player to determining whether or not Boston wins or loses games.
Boston will not win a title unless Tatum reaches his full potential, so the team should be doing everything in its power to maximize Tatum's chance at reaching his full potential. In addition, the moves should be geared around setting the team up to be deep enough and good enough to actually contend when Tatum does reach his full potential. Brown is basically the only player on the team that you can comfortably say that about, as such everyone else should be on the chopping block (I do like what I've seen from RW, PP, and AN, but there are no guarantees they will be key rotation pieces at any point in their career). Smart is just too injury prone to be relied upon, but certainly could still be a solid rotational piece in a couple of seasons.
And as I've been saying for years, this is the fundamental issue I have with the direction Ainge has taken the team. Since basically the day he made the KG/PP trade, he has been trying to win, while also building for the future, and I absolutely 100% believe he harmed both paths by doing that. He needed to pick a direction years ago and now frankly it is too late as the team just doesn't have the assets (on the team or in the future) to really effectively pick either path. The one last shot was Harden, and Ainge was too gunshy to go all in, and has basically foreclosed Boston's window for at least 2 seasons. Given that, he should absolutely be dumping Walker, dumping Thompson, seeing what he can get for Theis (and his great contract), etc. Boston needs to add potential rotational pieces for a few seasons down the line, when Tatum will be truly ready.
Topic: Could we be sellers at the deadline? (Read 6369 times)