JT > PP

[pokeKingCurtis]

Are we comparing wheelchair PP or upright PP? Need clarification before giving my .02.

I'm in the process of researching this

Edit: re watching not researching

[tenn_smoothie]

If Tatum continues his trajectory and adds titles, plural titles(I think he will), he will be a top 3 Celtic all-time far surpassing Pierce's career and showing he was better than Pierce from extremely early on in their careers.

If

[Moranis]

If Tatum continues his trajectory and adds titles, plural titles(I think he will), he will be a top 3 Celtic all-time far surpassing Pierce's career and showing he was better than Pierce from extremely early on in their careers.

If

Honestly I'm not sure the is that far away from guys like Hondo, Cousy, Cowens, McHale, etc.  Bill and Larry are so far out in front it isn't worth mentioning them, but everyone else is catchable for a guy with Tatum's talent and start to his career. 

[Roy H.]

If Tatum continues his trajectory and adds titles, plural titles(I think he will), he will be a top 3 Celtic all-time far surpassing Pierce's career and showing he was better than Pierce from extremely early on in their careers.

If

Honestly I'm not sure the is that far away from guys like Hondo, Cousy, Cowens, McHale, etc.  Bill and Larry are so far out in front it isn't worth mentioning them, but everyone else is catchable for a guy with Tatum's talent and start to his career.

He won’t catch Hondo unless he wins multiple titles and an MVP.

11x All-NBA; 8x All-Defense; 8 Championships

[Moranis]

If Tatum continues his trajectory and adds titles, plural titles(I think he will), he will be a top 3 Celtic all-time far surpassing Pierce's career and showing he was better than Pierce from extremely early on in their careers.

If

Honestly I'm not sure the is that far away from guys like Hondo, Cousy, Cowens, McHale, etc.  Bill and Larry are so far out in front it isn't worth mentioning them, but everyone else is catchable for a guy with Tatum's talent and start to his career.

He won’t catch Hondo unless he wins multiple titles and an MVP.

11x All-NBA; 8x All-Defense; 8 Championships

Was he even the best player on a title team though?  Maybe 74, but that is the only one you could realistically argue.  Hondo was a great player, but I feel like crediting him for 8 championships just doesn't make sense especially since I think they probably win the first 6 without him, you know since he joined a team that was reeling off championships that stopped even making the playoffs immediately upon Bill's retirement despite Hondo being in the prime of hic career.  It wasn't until Cowens started to come into his own that Boston again became a contender.

Edit: And why does Tatum need a MVP.  Hondo never won a MVP.  His best MVP finish was 4th, finished 5th as well.  In 74 he finished tied for 9th, but Cowens finished 4th which supports the fact that Cowens was the best player on that team, not Hondo.  Hondo had just 4 1st Team All NBA.  I think Tatum gets his 1st this year and he should be expected to continue to get them for the foreseeable future.

Also, to be clear, Tatum clearly needs to play more seasons to have careers anywhere close to Hondo, Cowens, Pierce, etc., I was more talking about reasonable projections (even with almost no more growth) that he is going to start being in the discussion because he is clearly more talented than those guys.  But if you told me I could have Tatum this season or any season in Hondo's career, I'd probably take Tatum in that 1 season scenario right now.

[Big333223]

On the other hand...

Tatum finished with 10 assists last night. That level of creation for others is something Pierce didn't really learn until he was past his prime as a scorer. That Tatum already has that is an argument in Tatum's favor.

You think?  Pierce averaged 6.7 assists in the 2003 playoffs, for instance.  He didn't hit double digits a lot in the playoffs, but I think he was a pretty good creator even early on.

Wow. Pierce's playoff stats in 2003, over ten games: 27.1/9.0/6.7 with 2 steals.

To your point, he really didn't have anyone to pass to until the Big 3 came together and then Rondo came into his own pretty quick so maybe what I'm remembering as him being slow to learn to pass is more about what he was being asked to do on the team.

And this also speaks to the biggest frustration with looking at Pierce's career: he spent so much of his prime on bad teams and then when he was winning he started to slow down.

If Tatum continues his trajectory and adds titles, plural titles(I think he will), he will be a top 3 Celtic all-time far surpassing Pierce's career and showing he was better than Pierce from extremely early on in their careers.

If

Honestly I'm not sure the is that far away from guys like Hondo, Cousy, Cowens, McHale, etc.  Bill and Larry are so far out in front it isn't worth mentioning them, but everyone else is catchable for a guy with Tatum's talent and start to his career.

He won’t catch Hondo unless he wins multiple titles and an MVP.

11x All-NBA; 8x All-Defense; 8 Championships

Was he even the best player on a title team though?  Maybe 74, but that is the only one you could realistically argue.  Hondo was a great player, but I feel like crediting him for 8 championships just doesn't make sense especially since I think they probably win the first 6 without him, you know since he joined a team that was reeling off championships that stopped even making the playoffs immediately upon Bill's retirement despite Hondo being in the prime of hic career.  It wasn't until Cowens started to come into his own that Boston again became a contender.

Edit: And why does Tatum need a MVP.  Hondo never won a MVP.  His best MVP finish was 4th, finished 5th as well.  In 74 he finished tied for 9th, but Cowens finished 4th which supports the fact that Cowens was the best player on that team, not Hondo.  Hondo had just 4 1st Team All NBA.  I think Tatum gets his 1st this year and he should be expected to continue to get them for the foreseeable future.

Also, to be clear, Tatum clearly needs to play more seasons to have careers anywhere close to Hondo, Cowens, Pierce, etc., I was more talking about reasonable projections (even with almost no more growth) that he is going to start being in the discussion because he is clearly more talented than those guys.  But if you told me I could have Tatum this season or any season in Hondo's career, I'd probably take Tatum in that 1 season scenario right now.

Havlicek was the best player on the '69 team. He led that team in points and assists. Russell was still there but 28 year old Hondo was better than 34 year old Russell. 

[Moranis]

Bill led the C's in winshares, finished 4th in MVP voting, and the C's went from winning the title to a 34 win non playoff team the next year without him (and Sam).  Bill was pretty clearly Boston's best player every season he was on the team.

[Big333223]

Bill led the C's in winshares, finished 4th in MVP voting, and the C's went from winning the title to a 34 win non playoff team the next year without him (and Sam).  Bill was pretty clearly Boston's best player every season he was on the team.

Bill was still great in his last season for sure, but even though he was 4th in MVP voting, he didn't make an All NBA team (he was All Defensive 1st team). Havlicek was All NBA 2nd team, All Defensive 2nd team, led the team in scoring and assists in both the regular season and the playoffs.

I wasn't alive in '69 so I'm not going to argue it too hard but to say Russell was "clearly" the better player that year strikes me as overstatement.

[Moranis]

Bill led the C's in winshares, finished 4th in MVP voting, and the C's went from winning the title to a 34 win non playoff team the next year without him (and Sam).  Bill was pretty clearly Boston's best player every season he was on the team.

Bill was still great in his last season for sure, but even though he was 4th in MVP voting, he didn't make an All NBA team (he was All Defensive 1st team). Havlicek was All NBA 2nd team, All Defensive 2nd team, led the team in scoring and assists in both the regular season and the playoffs.

I wasn't alive in '69 so I'm not going to argue it too hard but to say Russell was "clearly" the better player that year strikes me as overstatement.

Wes Unseld and Willis Reed made the only 2 spots on the All NBA Team for centers.  Unseld won the MVP and Reed finished 2nd (Reed won it the next year after Bill was out and before Kareem fully ascended).  That was just a numbers game and Bill being a center was on the short stick.

[Jvalin]

Talent-wise, I reckon he's better than PP. Career-wise, he's obviously behind PP, but he's also only 24. If we win it all this season (which is a massive if), then the whole convo will change instantly.

[Ed Monix]

[celticsclay]

Bill led the C's in winshares, finished 4th in MVP voting, and the C's went from winning the title to a 34 win non playoff team the next year without him (and Sam).  Bill was pretty clearly Boston's best player every season he was on the team.

Bill was still great in his last season for sure, but even though he was 4th in MVP voting, he didn't make an All NBA team (he was All Defensive 1st team). Havlicek was All NBA 2nd team, All Defensive 2nd team, led the team in scoring and assists in both the regular season and the playoffs.

I wasn't alive in '69 so I'm not going to argue it too hard but to say Russell was "clearly" the better player that year strikes me as overstatement.

TP for acknowledging this. I've never understood for the life of me how someone can argue vehemently that one player was clearly better than the other player in a season 20 years before they were born for which there is basically not even video footage. 

[Vermont Green]

Wow, great stat.  So Tatum has 3 more rounds, best case, say 6 games per round, 18 more games total, say 24 pts per game, that is 432 more points potentially taking him to 1,628 or up to third on the list.  Even in a worst case, doomsday scenario, he gets 100 more points and ends up 5th.

Pretty solid.

[ETNCeltics]

If Tatum continues his trajectory and adds titles, plural titles(I think he will), he will be a top 3 Celtic all-time far surpassing Pierce's career and showing he was better than Pierce from extremely early on in their careers.

If

Honestly I'm not sure the is that far away from guys like Hondo, Cousy, Cowens, McHale, etc.  Bill and Larry are so far out in front it isn't worth mentioning them, but everyone else is catchable for a guy with Tatum's talent and start to his career.

He won’t catch Hondo unless he wins multiple titles and an MVP.

11x All-NBA; 8x All-Defense; 8 Championships

IMO, that's an unreasonable way to look at it. It's not apples and oranges. No current player is going to win 8 championships.

As great as Havlicek was, he won so many championships because he played on teams loaded with Hall of Fame players. Tatum won't ever play on a team that has a starting lineup of nothing but HOFers. How many of those titles was he the best player on the team? 2 or 3?

Using All NBA and all-star as a measure is also not apples and oranges. Many of those years there were only 9-10 teams in the entire league. Making all league when there are less than 150 players in the NBA vs making it now is an entirely different accomplishment.

[sgrogan]

If Tatum continues his trajectory and adds titles, plural titles(I think he will), he will be a top 3 Celtic all-time far surpassing Pierce's career and showing he was better than Pierce from extremely early on in their careers.

If

Honestly I'm not sure the is that far away from guys like Hondo, Cousy, Cowens, McHale, etc.  Bill and Larry are so far out in front it isn't worth mentioning them, but everyone else is catchable for a guy with Tatum's talent and start to his career.

He won’t catch Hondo unless he wins multiple titles and an MVP.

11x All-NBA; 8x All-Defense; 8 Championships

IMO, that's an unreasonable way to look at it. It's not apples and oranges. No current player is going to win 8 championships.

As great as Havlicek was, he won so many championships because he played on teams loaded with Hall of Fame players. Tatum won't ever play on a team that has a starting lineup of nothing but HOFers. How many of those titles was he the best player on the team? 2 or 3?

Using All NBA and all-star as a measure is also not apples and oranges. Many of those years there were only 9-10 teams in the entire league. Making all league when there are less than 150 players in the NBA vs making it now is an entirely different accomplishment.

What's the criteria then?  If we can't take the past into consideration. Jayson won tonight, he must be the greatest?