Jayson Tatum is going to steal your soul
Michael Dwyer/Associated Press
Remember what we all thought about the Celtics going into the 2017-2018 season? Boston was coming off of an Eastern Conference Finals appearance thanks to the absurdly memorable “King in the Fourth” season by Isaiah Thomas, they had drafted Jalen Brown with the third pick in 2016, they had just flipped the #1 overall pick to the 76ers (an all-time fleece job by Danny Ainge) in exchange for MORE draft assets, drafted the player they really wanted in Jayson Tatum, signed Gordon Hayward, signed Al Horford, and traded for Kyrie Irving, all with one of the best coaches in basketball designing the playbook.
At the time, it seemed like the Celtics were set to capitalize on perhaps the most impressive rebuilding effort in the history of sports – one that involved zero demolition. Today, February twenty fifth, the year of our Lord two thousand and twenty, it’s clear which of those decisions will be the key to Boston’s attempt to turn one of the largest stockpiles of assets in basketball history into a championship team: drafting Jayson Tatum.
“Tatum’s our best player by a mile. I just wish he knew that”.
That was the refrain for just about every Boston fan after seeing him his rookie year. Tatum shot 43.4% on three-point shots (and took three of them a game) and, after Hayward and Irving were sidelined with injury, became the de facto number one option for the top team in the East as the playoffs began. If you didn’t already know how that playoff run went, how far would you guess a 19-year old rookie could lead a team in the postseason? I’d bet my childhood Yu-Gi-Oh card collection that you wouldn’t guess he could lead them to within one game of the NBA Finals. The craziest thing? The one knock on Tatum that whole run was the he could be doing more. Taking more shots, being more aggressive, looking for his own shot.
And now he is.
Watching him for the past three weeks has been a revelation only overshadowed by Zion-mania. In the month of February, Tatum’s averaging 29.7 points, 7.4 rebounds and 3.2 assists with 48.3 – 46.8 – 77.8 shooting splits. Sure, I expect that 3-point accuracy to drop a little bit as time goes on, but do you want to know the thing that really gets me going? For the whole month, Tatum’s attempting 8 free throws a game. He’s not James Harden, but attempting eight free throws for a whole season is the very achievable goal that would take Tatum’s game to MVP-levels.
Tatum’s free throw attempts have always been a little lackluster, indicative of the fact that he needed to be more aggressive taking the ball to the hole. He’s addressing what was once his biggest knock by attacking the rim like it owed him money. The Celtics are 7-2 in February and certainly within striking distance of the 2-seed. Those free throw attempts also coincide with the fact that his 3-point percentage is through the roof, which means Tatum isn’t just letting his red-hot shooting carry his point totals. He’s torching teams from beyond the arch AND making himself a problem in the interior, and he’s doing it against some of the best players in the league. It’s like he’s just recently realized how good he really is, and now he wants to see if anyone else can match him.
The game that really got the Tatum talk going was his 39-point double-overtime game against the Clippers right before the All-Star break (in which Kawhi played all of 45 minutes). Tatum couldn’t have cared less that he was being checked by a two-time Defensive Player of the Year. By the fourth quarter and overtime periods, he was playing with such a confidence that a Clippers fan like me thought “Shit. He’s outplaying Kawhi. I never should have asked for a Blake Griffin jersey as a kid”. The Celtics ended up winning in front of a national audience and the basketball world all looked at each other wondering if we should believe that this was the Tatum we’d be seeing regularly.
On Sunday afternoon, he turned me into a believer. He walked onto the court of the Staples Center, looked at LeBron and Anthony Davis, and told them to keep up. He tied his career high with 41 points, shot 57% from 3, and attempted a career-high 15 free throws. The foul shots came with the assistance of some pretty brutal officiating on both sides, but the point remained that Jayson Tatum stepped onto a court with two of the five best basketball players in the world and seemed right at home. He created his own shot in ways that, honest to God, really seemed reminiscent of Kobe Bryant. He ran defenders off screens, convinced before he even got open that his shot was going to fall. He did #24 proud and earned his right to wear that purple armband. The fact that he was so effective playing that way is even crazier when you think about the fact that Tatum isn’t a shooting guard, he’s a 6’8” power forward who hasn’t even grown into his body yet.
As Tatum continues to hone his down the playoff stretch, he’s only going to continue to be a problem in the East. With a healthy Kemba and a flourishing Brown, the question that’s going to keep most teams up at night is going to be “Who can guard Tatum?”. The next generation of NBA talents have me as excited about basketball as I’ve been in a number of years. Zion, Morant, Dončić and Trae and others have me salivating over what the next 15 years of basketball could look like. But Tatum already has experience with deep playoff runs, plays like he has something to prove to other elite players, and is nestled comfortably into one of the most competent basketball organizations in the league.
I think all of us want to see the next generation of players stick around with their franchises a little more, but as a non-Boston fan, I’m praying that Tatum gets sick of clam chowder soon.