Boston Celtics: Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown’s success should come as no surprise — here’s why

A quarter of the way into the season, the Boston Celtics have shown they are not a team of the future, but rather a team of the present. Led by two of their youngest players in Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum, the team has proved that they can compete for the East despite losing both Kyrie Irving and Al Horford.

When Jaylen Brown signed a 4-year, $115 million deal with the Boston Celtics before the start of the 2019-20 season, NBA Twitter seemed to have a comedy night about it. Sarcastic tweets and memes ran through the internet as Brown’s contract was heavily ridiculed.

Instead of a long explanation as to why the contract already is proving to be worth it, here is my tweet from the day of the contract, and some of the replies.

https://twitter.com/virdi_jay/status/1186422852435599360

https://twitter.com/v_royalty_s/status/1186408329695809536

While Brown has been off to a surprising start, the reality is that it should not be that surprising. When this contract was signed, there were many that said a player who averaged 13 points and four rebounds should get nowhere near the money that Brown got. However, if you dive deeper into last season, you’d see that Brown’s stats may be more of a case of his lack of touches/minutes than it was his actual game.

As for Jayson Tatum, his lack of production could be credited to the “Kyrie Irving style” of basketball that the Boston Celtics were plagued with last season. Tatum strayed away from his rookie season style of three pointers and slashing to the hoop, and instead relied on contested isolation mid-range jumpers. While Tatum was considered a marginally better player than Brown last year, the truth is they were both right around the same page. The only difference was Tatum was shooting and playing more.

The stats don’t lie!

Now of course, per game statistics are going to favor Tatum. He shot more, played more and was more involved in the all-around offense. Taking a deeper dive into the stats, here is what we can find.

Jayson Tatum 2018-19 stats per 36 minutes:

• 45% FG
• 7 rebounds
• 2.5 assists
• 1.2 steals
• 18.2 points

Jaylen Brown 2018-19 stats per 36 minutes

• 46.5% FG
• 6 rebounds
• 2 assists
• 1.3 steals
• 18.1 points

When matched up on the same amount of playing time, Brown, despite being known as having a bad season, basically matched up statically with Tatum. Now, we’ve compared them with each other, but how do they compare to other notable players around the league? Considering Brown was in his third year while Tatum was in his second, here is the average of a select players second and third year statistics per 36 minutes.

Jimmy Butler per 36 minutes year 2/3 averaged:

• 43% FG
• 5 rebounds
• 2.2 assists
• 1.5 steals
• 15.1 points

Kawhi Leonard per 36 minutes year 2/3 averaged

• 50% FG
• 7.3 rebounds
• 2.1 assists
• 2 steals
• 14.7 points

The point of this chart isn’t to tell you that Brown and Tatum will become Jimmy Butler and Kawhi Leonard, but both seemed to be getting a lot of hate for players so young in their careers. It shouldn’t come as surprise that both of these budding stars for the Boston Celtics are thriving.

As expected, both have had their stats jump this year as their minutes jumped. Brown has averaged 19 points and 7 rebounds per game while shooting 49% from the field. He’s averaging 33 minutes per game. Tatum has averaged 21 points and 7 rebounds over 34 minutes per game. It’s a simple equation: more minutes = bigger stats.

No one should be surprised that Brown and Tatum are playing as well as they are. They are getting more minutes and cashing in on the opportunity. With this, the Boston Celtics, and their fans, are reaping these rewards.