We have enough of a Tatum sample now

[zoyathedestroya]

30 games in a new role and with increased usage is enough sample?

[sam_I_am]

Anyone who thinks we should trade Tatum would have tried to run 23 yo Paul Pierce out of town. This guy may not be the best young player in NBA but he has the tools, the size, the skills and an elite shot to be excellent in all phases of the game. What more do you want?

[Jammer]

I think that Tatum is the most impactful Celtic, best defensive player and disagree with the OP's premise.

[FeedReed]

agreed 100%, he really is the anti smart, he’s more like carmelo or dwight howard. tatum has been annointed by the media and majority of fanbase though(many likely influenced by media). the royal treatment he receives is extremely bizarre, we’re just living in bizarro land. i’ll admit, he’s been pretty solid defensively, but the guy has abysmal shooting nights every other game. he is at best, 5th most valuable player on this team(kemba, brown, hayward, smart), and is absolutely the guy to trade for drummond. i don’t want to hear “when he learns how to make a layup” any more. this dude is in his third season, and people seriously still defend the fact that he can’t make the easiest shot in the world? the greatest thing since sliced bread but he can’t make a layup. carbs are overrated, and so is tatum.

[StojkoVrankovic]

This is like if a poster on Celticsblog was in a coma, but was hooked up to a computer and was able to translate their nightmares

[MagicBagley18]

He has plenty of talent, but he does not have the heart or competitiveness to be true franchise player. He's a stat guy, overly preoccupied with AS Game appearances and awards, and his pursuit of those personal achievements detract from his ability to play team ball.

He takes so many forced bad shots in his pursuit of that mythical 20ppg average, so many head-down drives to the basket through 3 defenders and endless complaining to the refs after every single missed shot. Too prideful for his own good. Too cool to show the heart and hustle that a franchise player must demonstrate. That was fine as a rookie, but in his third year now I've seen enough to say that Tatum is a stat guy, not a winning guy. He's the anti Marcus Smart.

As a young player with 1.5 years on a deal, average 20ppg I imagine he would fetch a very nice haul. He's redundant on this team with Brown and Hayward, and likely more even redundant moving forward with Langford playing more.

I wouldn't trade him as part of a shortsighted attempt to win it all this year, but rather because he's demonstrated that he is not the winning type of player you need and is always going to handicap the offense with his forced, selfish shot selection. Moving on now allows us to sacrifice very little from this years team, while also reloading for the future.

Banned 1 year. No soup for u

[DarkAzcura]

agreed 100%, he really is the anti smart, he’s more like carmelo or dwight howard. tatum has been annointed by the media and majority of fanbase though(many likely influenced by media). the royal treatment he receives is extremely bizarre, we’re just living in bizarro land. i’ll admit, he’s been pretty solid defensively, but the guy has abysmal shooting nights every other game. he is at best, 5th most valuable player on this team(kemba, brown, hayward, smart), and is absolutely the guy to trade for drummond. i don’t want to hear “when he learns how to make a layup” any more. this dude is in his third season, and people seriously still defend the fact that he can’t make the easiest shot in the world? the greatest thing since sliced bread but he can’t make a layup. carbs are overrated, and so is tatum.

I mean, he hit layups at a fantastic rate his first two seasons, so I’m not sure why you are framing this as if this has been a three year conversation.

Rookie year he was at 63% and second year he was at 68%. This year he is at 55%. He is having an off season finishing, it seems. This isn’t a trend.

Anyway to the OP, I actually do agree that he appears too interested in stats and AS appearances, but I mean, most 21 year olds are. But, most 21 year olds aren’t top 2 options while playing great defense on top 5 teams either. Pretty hard to find two way players like this. Grass isn’t always greener.

[LarryBirdsFingr]

Yeah the only issue I have is the rim finishes. He was so smooth in year 1/2 then it seems as though he's gotten a mild case of the yips when it comes to layups.

[5InOfLouisville]

agreed 100%, he really is the anti smart, he’s more like carmelo or dwight howard. tatum has been annointed by the media and majority of fanbase though(many likely influenced by media). the royal treatment he receives is extremely bizarre, we’re just living in bizarro land. i’ll admit, he’s been pretty solid defensively, but the guy has abysmal shooting nights every other game. he is at best, 5th most valuable player on this team(kemba, brown, hayward, smart), and is absolutely the guy to trade for drummond. i don’t want to hear “when he learns how to make a layup” any more. this dude is in his third season, and people seriously still defend the fact that he can’t make the easiest shot in the world? the greatest thing since sliced bread but he can’t make a layup. carbs are overrated, and so is tatum.

I mean, he hit layups at a fantastic rate his first two seasons, so I’m not sure why you are framing this as if this has been a three year conversation.

Rookie year he was at 63% and second year he was at 68%. This year he is at 55%. He is having an off season finishing, it seems. This isn’t a trend.

Anyway to the OP, I actually do agree that he appears too interested in stats and AS appearances, but I mean, most 21 year olds are. But, most 21 year olds aren’t top 2 options while playing great defense on top 5 teams either. Pretty hard to find two way players like this.

I would disagree that theres anything wrong with his motivations.

I think that he was expressly told that his role is to be a scorer. Brad and danny are banking on him being a goto scorer. If they try to cover you one on one, go get buckets.

I think brad would say the majority of his shots are good ones, and that an attacking tatum is good for the offense. Stats mostly say the same.

I agree that id prefer higher efficiency. You got to make layups for sure.

But hopefully we are just watching a minihiccup as jt figures out how to be the player we think he can become. Our team continues to be better w him on the floor and that says a lot. And i personally like where his heads at

[ThirtyFour]

I still blame Kobe. For everything wrong on the world.

That said, I think aside from the layup issue which I think he’ll resolve, (cuz it must be the easiest thing in basketball to fix?) I do think he lacks aggressiveness sometimes. Maybe just his personality, not everyone can be KG, but he just seems passive at times.

When he shows fire he seems like he could be unstoppable though. Maybe a full time heckler behind the bench would do it?

[Parasite]

He has plenty of talent, but he does not have the heart or competitiveness to be true franchise player. He's a stat guy, overly preoccupied with AS Game appearances and awards, and his pursuit of those personal achievements detract from his ability to play team ball.

He takes so many forced bad shots in his pursuit of that mythical 20ppg average, so many head-down drives to the basket through 3 defenders and endless complaining to the refs after every single missed shot. Too prideful for his own good. Too cool to show the heart and hustle that a franchise player must demonstrate. That was fine as a rookie, but in his third year now I've seen enough to say that Tatum is a stat guy, not a winning guy. He's the anti Marcus Smart.

As a young player with 1.5 years on a deal, average 20ppg I imagine he would fetch a very nice haul. He's redundant on this team with Brown and Hayward, and likely more even redundant moving forward with Langford playing more.

I wouldn't trade him as part of a shortsighted attempt to win it all this year, but rather because he's demonstrated that he is not the winning type of player you need and is always going to handicap the offense with his forced, selfish shot selection. Moving on now allows us to sacrifice very little from this years team, while also reloading for the future.

He’s jumblin....he’s bumblin....he’s stumblin....and he face plants!

Listen man, I get the frustration when he has games like last night. It’s maddening. But he has been a very good all around player for the most part this year and he’s still just 21. It would be madness to give up on him now.

[scootch]

I am unsure why some continue to doubt him. Yes, he has been inconsistent, but that has come with some really great games to offset the bad. We have seen over the years the importance of the year 4 jump. Jaylen is in the midst of it right now. Jayson is going to be a wrecking ball next year.

[keevsnick1]

As a guy who thinks he hasn't been as good as the advanced impact stats suggest, I still think this is a massive overreaction. Tatum has increase his usage rate each of the last two years and each year his TS% has dropped. But here's the thing, that makes a lot of sense. You take more shots and you go from corner threes/fast break/ open layups to taking tougher shots and you hit fewer of those shots. You go from mostly cuts or driving against mismatches to trying to take good perimeter SF's off the dribble and your finishing at the rim will fall. Tatum needs to learn to be efficient, but at 21.5 he certainly has time to. A lot of really good players have to learn that over time.

[Tai]

agreed 100%, he really is the anti smart, he’s more like carmelo or dwight howard. tatum has been annointed by the media and majority of fanbase though(many likely influenced by media). the royal treatment he receives is extremely bizarre, we’re just living in bizarro land. i’ll admit, he’s been pretty solid defensively, but the guy has abysmal shooting nights every other game. he is at best, 5th most valuable player on this team(kemba, brown, hayward, smart), and is absolutely the guy to trade for drummond. i don’t want to hear “when he learns how to make a layup” any more. this dude is in his third season, and people seriously still defend the fact that he can’t make the easiest shot in the world? the greatest thing since sliced bread but he can’t make a layup. carbs are overrated, and so is tatum.

Wow @ the bolded.

And as said before, he was doing layups fine before, just not lately. "Learn how to make a layup" is a stretch.

[Darth Celtic]

He just needs to get stronger. Another 20lbs of muscle over the next 2 years will do great things driving to the hoop. Right now he too often chucks the defender and gets called for it. The big strong guys like Giannis can do that without fully extending the arm and no offensive foul. He's 21.

Here is Giannis at age 21.


Here is Giannis at 24.


He for sure got stronger in the offseason. I joked about how he needed to be eating 5k calories a day and lifting 4hrs a day 3 days a week in the offseason and he wasn't posting any picks of that. But he was doing it. Just needs to pick back up in the offseason.

[jumblin]

To clarify, I think Tatum is a very talented player. You have to be to be a 20ppg scorer. That is exactly why I want to trade him, he is young, affordable and talented. Tons of teams will want that and Danny can fleece someone.

Just my opinion, but I always feel watching Tatum that he's slightly pained anytime a teammate gets a bucket on a possession where Tatum had a weak defender on him. He refuses to pass to his teammates on the fastbreak, no matter how poor his path to the basket is. He's a good player, just a selfish one.

If this was Orlando or Washington or some other team that had zero championship aspirations, I'd be thrilled to have a solid 20ppg scorer like Tatum. But this is Boston, the ring is the only pursuit that matters. If we're in the Finals at some point I don't want to have to be worrying about Tatum forcing up stat padding bad shots because he's more concerned with Finals MVP than he is about actually winning.

[TommyPointGawd]

He just needs to get stronger. Another 20lbs of muscle over the next 2 years will do great things driving to the hoop. Right now he too often chucks the defender and gets called for it. The big strong guys like Giannis can do that without fully extending the arm and no offensive foul. He's 21.

Here is Giannis at age 21.


Here is Giannis at 24.


He for sure got stronger in the offseason. I joked about how he needed to be eating 5k calories a day and lifting 4hrs a day 3 days a week in the offseason and he wasn't posting any picks of that. But he was doing it. Just needs to pick back up in the offseason.

This is Gianni's at 22. Tatum has 2 months to transform lol.

I do think Tatum plays his best when he gets his points early. He plays more at ease and within the game. Which kind of points to him pressing to get stats. I think he will grow out of it.

[Gant]

What Tatum does well is very valuable and very rare. What he does poorly is easily correctable in a moderate time frame.

[TheMartian]

I'll admit Jayson can be frustrating to watch sometimes, but I'm still putting my money on the kid. He's 21 ffs.

[Bohemian]

Tatum is an extremely talented scorer but he has many flaws that need to be adressed, and I think it should be done by the coaching staff and by experience. Let´s not forget he is 21. But some details:

1. He is the guy that shoots THE MOST (more than 18 shots per game) in the team while averaging slightly over 40%. I mean, you can´t shoot 2 out of 16 like last night. It shouldn´t be needed that a coach tells you that, but if you have shot - let´s say 12 times- and you have only got 1 or 2 you should think of passing the damn ball or rebound. It´s just boring to see players looking at him standing while he or Jaylen play ISO ball. If needed, that is Kemba´s role not theirs. And I insist, if needed. Cause that isn´t quality Celtics basketball. We are supposed to know how to pass the freaking ball.

2. Talking about passing. He averages 2.0 assists per game in his career over 31 minutes per game. Combine points 1 and 2 and you have a problem

Don´t get me wrong, he is very good. But as I teacher myself I see Tatum as one of those brilliant kids in class whose parents let them do whatever they want just because their grades are superb. It isn´t enough, sorry. I enjoy watching Smart, Hayward and guys like Williams more most of the times.