Boston Celtics: C’s best young duo is… Jayson Tatum & Robert Williams?

When it comes to the current state of the Boston Celtics, their identity revolves around the likes of their two All-Star wings in Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown.

Having been selected third overall in back-to-back drafts (Brown in 2016; Tatum in 2017) the pair have managed to develop into the team’s unquestioned building blocks with their stupendous play over the years.

Since truly coming into their own back in 2019-20, the Jays have entered themselves into the conversation for both the best young duo as well as one of the top-3 best overall wing duos in the entire league.

In 2021-22, however, it appears as though a new iteration of the C’s top young duo has formed, and while Tatum still finds himself serving as one half, Robert Williams has gone about and replaced Brown on the other side of the equation.

In fact, this tandem has been so good this year, the folks at Bleacher Report believe they are deserving of the sixth overall spot in the entire league when it comes to young duos.

"Between a shot selection that tends to stall out before the basket and a recent three-point slide, Tatum is going to have his detractors. Fine. It’s still bonkers to bet against him for the rest of the year. He is an authentic offensive hub and doesn’t get enough credit for his all-around defense.Williams is not some throwaway inclusion solely propped up by Tatum. He is more role player than star but hardly a specialist. His defense extends past the free-throw line when he’s locked in, and few play-finishing bigs are so deft at spraying split-second passes to orbiting shooters."

Now, perhaps if Brown hadn’t gone down with a hamstring injury a few weeks back the young duo writer Dan Favale would have chosen from the Boston Celtics would have been the usual suspects and, with this, perhaps they’d likely be in the top-3 on such a list alongside Bam Adebayo & Tyler Herro (No. 2) and Trae Young & John Collins (No. 1) rather than at the back-end of the top-6.

However, even with this, it’s still rather impressive that despite the fact that Robert Williams is arguably a high-end role player, B/R believes he and Tatum have managed to put themselves in the same conversation as legitimate franchise cornerstone tandems such as Sacramento’s De’Aaron Fox & Tyrese Haliburton (No. 7) and Cleveland’s Darius Garland & Evan Mobley (No. 5) on a list discussing the league’s top young duos.