Last regular season, our top scorers were:
Brown 28.7 pts
Pritchard 17.0 pts
White 16.5 pts
Simons 14.2 pts
Of course, now subtract Brown and Simons and add in Tatum and Paul George. You can look at this a number of ways. I don't think the subtraction of Simons is all that important. I think Hauser, Scheierman, Hugo, and so on can make up for his scoring.
Tatum replacing Brown will be good for White, I think. He may not score much more if any, but hopefully better efficiency. And if Paul George can stay on the court, I think he helps a lot. I actually agree in general with what Stevens said. He is an efficient player who does a lot of the things that contribute to winning, even at this age. Obviously he has to stay on the court though.
But mostly it is about Tatum. I view him as much better at making others better than Brown. This will help White and everyone else to be more efficient; more productive. If George is healthy and playing well for the playoff run, I think this team can make some noise. Hard to see them as the favorite to get to the finals or win the title without some real surprise leap from one of the young random wings or Cenac or something but I see them as in the mix.
One thing about last year that I think is often overlooked, but I'm not sure how to quantify it: last year's team had a chip on its shoulder. It came in with expectations that it would be a bottom-tier playoff team, if that. JB embraced the role of "us against the world", and the team followed him.
Last year's team overachieved because of that focus. I think that that's hard to replicate. Even if guys play at an acceptably hard level for the regular season, without that "prove them wrong" factor I think the wins and losses might suffer.
I know a lot of people are applying simple logic, arguing Tatum + George + Robinson > Brown + Simons / Vucevic, and are concluding that we'll do better than 56 wins. But, I think we've seen in the past that logic doesn't always play out. (One example: the 2022 played like the best team in basketball for four months and made the Finals. We essentially traded Nesmith for Brogdon, and ended up losing to a #8 seed in the playoffs.)
Makes sense. I think there's a solid chance that 2026-27 becomes what we thought 2025-26 was going to be. A 40-45 win team. The team got used to winning/ being competitive every game. It became a mentality that they had a chance to win every night. I think talent-wise this team can do that. But it's team culture that will ultimately determine whether this is a mediocre team or a top tier team in the East.
I agree with Roy in that JB and the team had a chip on its shoulder due to the low expectations of them and played hard to prove everyone wrong. (This is how I also interpret JB's end of season comments about it being his favorite season --> not because Tatum wasn't playing but because the team overachieved and made a lot of national pundits have to eat crow)
I do not see Tatum as nearly as driven as JB by naysayers (not to mention the pundits are figuring the C's to be a top team with Tatum instead of a play-in team with JB) so I think this team is going to drop games this season that they would have won last season. Tatum has never struck me as the guy that steps up and grabs the game by the throat to will his team to a win.
Just seems too comfortable doing what he likes (ISO 3's, pounding the ball way outside until there's only a few seconds left on the clock, walking the ball up the court, etc...) rather than push to make the tough plays (driving to the hoop for a foul, pushing the pace or getting the ball up the court quickly, passing the ball early in the shot clock to improve the chances of a good shot).
I'm hoping for the best from the team this year but I think this team is in for a significant shock in terms of wins and losses and just how much JB contributed to winning before Brad crapped the bed on that awful trade.
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