Boston Celtics: Jayson Tatum has taken the superstar leap

Heading into the All-Star break, it was hard to be excited as a Boston Celtics fan. Even riding a four-game win-streak, they were still hardly above .500.

But the main problem was Jayson Tatum didn’t look the same.

While Tatum had been averaging a career-high in points per game average (24.9) he was doing it on career-low efficiency. He was shooting just 43 percent from the field, and 36 percent from deep, down from 45 percent and 40 percent, respectively, from last season.

His defense looked a bit off as well, posting a career-worst defensive rating at 113.

It was so disappointing to see after such a hot start to the year, in which he posted averages of 27/7/4 on a career-best efficiency before he was diagnosed with COVID-19.

It made us all wonder: how destructive is this virus, even to those with top-tier health such as a professional athlete?

Tatum’s season has been two stark differences — with COVID and without COVID.

We will label Tatum’s play from the time he came back from COVID-19, to the All-Star break as “COVID-Tatum” and then go on to label his play from before his diagnosis, and now post All-Star break as “Non-COVID Tatum.”

COVID-Tatum posted averages of 23 points, 7 rebounds, and 3 assists on just 52 percent true shooting — 5.1 percent below league average.

Non-COVID Tatum has averaged 27 points a night, with 7 rebounds and 4 assists to round out the stat line.

The most impressive part is his efficiency, as he was in the 50/40/90 club during that stretch until his back to back 3-17 games.

If that isn’t proof enough to show how badly Tatum was affected by COVID, and how good he can truly be when healthy, then nothing is.

However, the 2x All-Star has changed his game in a few other areas to help him ascend to superstar-status.

Improved finishing for the Boston Celtics star:

Coming into the season, finishing was regarded as one of Tatums biggest faults. He had a bad touch on the ball, and would constantly brick layups off the backboard, however he has completely flipped the script this year.

Per Basketball-Reference, Tatum shot 61.8 percent from the restricted area last season. Now, he is up to a whopping 73 percent. Albeit on slightly less volume, a near 12 percent increase in the paint is an aspect of his game that needed to change to increase his overall efficiency.

By comparison, Zion Williamson and his own Boston Celtics teammate, Jaylen Brown, shoot 70 percent from 0-3 feet, and Ben Simmons shoots 67 percent. While all of these players have higher frequency, it goes to show Tatum’s large-scale improvement, as these players are labeled as elite finishers.

Playmaking from Jayson Tatum is the key to a Boston Celtics championship:

Another greatly-improved area of the All-NBA forward’s game is his passing and playmaking.

Recently on Twitter, I broke down how much Tatum has improved, and how he doesn’t deserve the “selfish” label. All of these stats can be found with BBall Index’s subscription services.

Let’s break it down piece by piece:

As you can see in these two tweets, Tatum has turned into not just one of Boston’s best playmakers, but one of the better playmaking forwards in the NBA.

People say he doesn’t pass enough, yet he’s first in pass frequency on the team. Statistically, he is also the second-best playmaker on the team itself.

Moving on to the league as a whole, Tatum has skyrocketed into the realm of best playmaking forwards.

Among players at his position, he is now 10th in pass creation volume (up 29 spots from last year), sixth In pass creation quality (up 20 spots from last year), and by no surprise, number one in scoring gravity (14th last year). Scoring gravity is the concept of drawing eyes and defenders to open up other shooters or cutters, and Tatum is now the best in the NBA out of all forwards in that category.

He is also ninth in playmaker rating amongst forwards (up 30 spots from 2019-20), and 14th in assists per game (up 16 spots from last year). This development has been rapid, and has really started to blossom in last years playoffs.

Breaking it down even further, The fourth-year pro had just 17 games with 5+ assists in his first three seasons (225 games). However, in just 54 games this season, he has had 20 of such games.

Also in his first 3 years, he never had a 10+ assist game, but this year he has 3, including his first career triple-double.

We all know Tatum can put the ball in the basket like few others can, as he has become one of the most deadly three-level scorers in the NBA. However what is going to separate him from the pack is the playmaking improvement. He still has plenty of room to grow — he can cut down on the turnovers and read defenses better, but for the meantime it seems like he has taken the leap.

Many have debated over the last season and a half if Tatum deserves the illustrious “Superstar” title.

But now, with the Boston Celtics having won nine of their last 12, making a push for the 4-seed after an awful start, I believe he deserves it.

Averaging 28 points, 9 boards, and 5 assists during this span — 7 of the 9 wins coming against playoff teams above .500 — is no easy feat. This is not to say Tatum, and the team, don’t have other areas in need of improvement, but it’s a great step towards championship basketball.