Jayson Tatum has molded himself into the de facto number one option for the Boston Celtics in 2019-20. Still, there are parts of his game that could use some fine tuning. Perhaps a player such as LeBron James could teach him a thing or two.
After quite an underwhelming sophomore season, 22 year old Jayson Tatum raised his game significantly with the Boston Celtics in 2019-20 and, in turn, was bestowed the honors of NBA All-Star.
Through 59 games played, the third year wing saw himself boasting career high averages seemingly all across the board: 23.6 points, 7.1 rebounds, 2.9 assists, 1.4 steals and just shy of a block per game on 45 percent shooting from the floor and 40 percent shooting from deep.
Behind his excellence, the C’s were thriving during the regular season to the tune of a 43-21 record, placing them at the third seed in the Eastern Conference, the fifth seed in the entire association and headed to their sixth straight playoff appearance — clinched a postseason berth on March 10th, just one day before the league’s COVID-19 induced hiatus.
Tatum’s stellar performance during the regular season was met with great praise and admiration from the media, his peers and, in some cases, the superiors of the league. After the Boston Celtics’ February 23rd outing against the Los Angeles Lakers — where the wing put up a fantastic stat line of 41 points, five rebounds and two assists on 57 percent shooting from 3 — the Kings of modern day basketball, LeBron James, took to social media to commend Tatum for his impressive play.
(CAPTION) “That boi to the left of me is an ABSOLUTE PROBLEM!! Keep going #YoungKing🤴🏼 #OnelegSleeveGang lol 🙏🏾💪🏾👑”
Though the C’s came away from this game without a win — the controversially tight game ended with a bogus offensive foul on a potentially game-tying attempt by Tatum — the young forward showed the world and, obviously, LeBron why he received his first All-Star nod in 2019-20.
Tatum, too, has oft been vocal about the great respect he has for the generational talent. Recently, he even went as far as to say that in year 17, he believes James is deserving of the league’s Most Valuable Player award if the season were to end right now.
His reasoning was quite sound; Tatum discussed the fact that the Lakers were the number one seed in the West, that James was putting up 25+ points a night and the fact that, at 35 and technically playing small forward, he was leading the league in assists (10.6 per game).
In the past, we’ve discussed ways in which Jayson Tatum could one day win league MVP. Interestingly enough, the gist of the points we made in the article were the reasons as to why Tatum believes LBJ is deserving of the NBA’s highest individual honor.
We here at the Houdini have the utmost faith that Jayson Tatum will only improve upon his stellar third season as a pro and ascend the rankings into superstar status.
We pinpointed that he must improve upon his overall scoring numbers, his facilitation game and guide his team to around 60 wins if he wants to find himself legitimately in the conversation for league MVP at some point down the road. It seems like the wing knows this, for all three of these reasons were why he opted to tab the four time recipient of the illustrious award as his choice for this season’s winner.
With this in mind — along with many other reasons, of course –, Jayson Tatum should consider taking some notes out of LeBron James’ playbook.