Jayson Tatum Needs His Own Thread
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People construct narratives like this but I do not believe them. Brad doesn’t yell at the refs enough, Tatum talks to the refs too much...
I agree with this and it is the same reason HRB had Luka lower than many others. https://sonsofsamhorn.net/index.php?threads/the-2018-nba-draft.19534/page-23#post-2878491
Yes. I would just add that any polish that isn't really needed to be a college star won't necessarily develop until the heightened competition of the NBA. Tatum is already showing some signs of ability to create his own threes.
Yes. I think he has plenty of realistic room for improvement.
Tatum doesn't seem to talk much, just rolls his eyes. And Stevens doesn't yell. He just holds up his two hands, palms skyward, with a quizzical look on his face. I realize that Stevens will never be Earl Weaver, but he's pretty passive when it comes to the officials.
You are correct in how a player can more easily grow his ball skills into elite length and athleticism than he can grow length/athleticism into already existing ball skills. This is one of the core ideals of how to best project a young players upside. It's interesting that you choose Smart as a guy who has overcome some of his physical limitations. To me, he is the poster child for the high floor/low-upside young player that I projected him to be when he came into the league without the quickness of a 1 or the athletic lift in the paint to be an elite finisher. Many insisted he could be a full-time 1 in this league which I have always been adamant that would not be his best fit and as a combo guard rotation player doing much of the dirty work against wings was going to be his role playing calling card in this league.
Luka is a freak. An outlier for sure. He's no Dragan Bender that is for sure.
It is fruitless to point out specific outliers. That's like saying pointing out the 42-44% of losing bets a successful sports bettor makes. Like sports betting, the margins are thin when projecting young NBA players but there are proven parameters out there to look at to alleviate some of the guesswork of projecting upside.
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Look at the pass Marcus makes at 1:29 in this video. He makes multiple slick, threading passes like this all the time. I certainly did not see that kind of court awareness and vision from him as a rookie. It feels difficult for me to say a player has reached his ceiling if there is still skill level growth possible. In this era of basketball where we've seen players who never shot a three for years of their career add that to their game, it seems odd to me that we would ever feel like a 21 year old isn't likely to significantly improve in those aspects of the game. The thrilling thing about this player is that he is athletic enough to be an elite player, it's a matter of improving specific skills and potentially adding 15-20 pounds of muscle. These things are entirely in his control and I expect, given his personality and the coachablity he showed this offseason, that he will make those improvements.
More fundamentally, I just don't see how we can look at a 21 year old player averaging 20 points a game on a winning team and feel like hes's peaked. He's doing this as a 21 year old. After a season of being a primary option, and an offseason to work on the issues he has identified this season, I can't imagine how good 2020-2021 Tatum is going to look. I would be shocked if he isn't markedly better than he has been this season, and if he's markedly better than he is this season, he's a top 15 player.
Instincts and court vision were some of Smart's greatest strengths at OK State when he was among the leading assist guys in the Big-12 during his two years there. These were ball skills that he already had exhibited. Once the NBA game slowed down for him he was really able to excel as a secondary playmaker but he always had these skills in his repertoire when he entered the league.
Nobody is saying that Tatum is AT his ceiling as a 21-year old. Where else but the internet can you call a player an All-star and get slammed for it. Lol.
I think many fans are a little gunshy on Tatum and prior to the season, were gunshy on Jaylen, because they didn't take a step forward last year. I think back to the many times last season when I read that the offensive plan that they practiced, and looked so good, went out the window during the games. That was the ball hog playing Iso ball and there wasn't a flow to the offense. This season has been so much different and JT has been called on to do some different things which are well documented in the last couple pages of posts. For my money, where he is now is where I hoped he'd be last year but last year truly was a lost season.
He'll take a big step forward this season and I don't doubt that we'll see it by game 60. Wouldn't be surprised at all to see him average 25+ for the last 1/3 or 1/4 of the season.
He'll take a big step forward this season and I don't doubt that we'll see it by game 60. Wouldn't be surprised at all to see him average 25+ for the last 1/3 or 1/4 of the season.
The one caveat I would say is that on this team, with GH and Kemba back healthy, I don't think Tatum will or should be averaging 25+. There are just too many good offensive weapons. What I would like to see, back when the whole team is together, is for Tatum to start putting up numbers more like Hayward was doing earlier in the season. The 20 points on 9/15 type numbers, rather than the 24 points on 7-20 type numbers. I'm a Tatum fan, don't get me wrong - just saying that on this team, they are going to be the best with 4 guys with 20+ points a game, rather than one guy trying to be the alpha with 25+.
I don't think anyone is slamming you.
BUT I do think it's your nature to see 90% of the board/Celtic fan base saying Tatum will eventually be a perennial All-Star and for you to retort with he'll reach that level once as a reserve (ie Hayward comp).
When everyone says one thing its usually smart to bet the other. As a gambler, you like taking those positions. I partially attribute your Luka call the same way, since in 2017 you came out early and had Luka/Ayton 1-2. When everyone got excited about Luka, you became a seller.
Here is another thing about individual player projections. They don't always mirror the results on paper. I have preached long and hard about how I felt Jaylen DID take a significant leap last year in fighting through all the dysfunction along with his changing role on that team. This is one of the reasons, yes along with his athleticism, why I am so bullish on his continued growth.
I did not mean to imply that Tatum would be a 1x All-Star only that he would be a lower tier guy each year and not a perennial starter as many expect him to become. You are wrong on the Doncic thing unless I'm severely mistaken as I never had him in that top group......maybe this was confused with recognizing that he would be drafted that high. I was bearish on him long before he was in the NBA. He quickly showed that he was able to adapt and slow the game down and with that new information my position changed. Being flexible and open minded to admit you were wrong on a player is important. It's hard to do and something everyone struggles with but it has to be done once new information becomes available.
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Just want to be clear that I’m not slamming you at all, I’ve been a lurker for a bit and I always enjoy reading your takes. You called Jaylen Brown from the beginning of his career, to your credit.
That said, weren’t you using names like Rudy Gay and maybe Jeff Green when talking about Tatum last season? You do veer into trolling and bad faith takes at times (like saying no max players will sign in Boston being a favorite, or implying that the max players who have signed here aren‘t ‘real’ max guys) and the Tatum negativity feels similar.
I used those names not as comps but as Tatum having some of the same floating habits throughout the course of games while having similar athletic traits. I think I may have used Harrison Barnes as well. He's 21 so maybe he will grow out of that and giving him a pass for last season is fair being a young kid in a tough situation on that team. I still see that these traits do exist today though and at least in part of what I feel could hold him back from reaching that potential some see in him.
hilarious... guilty as charged
BUT after seeing HRB's sizeable activity on the betting thread, there is only one thing motivating his thought process.
Also trying to toss him a Luka out
Yeah, that's a really good point. He did progress nicely as the season wore on. I also wonder if his offseason improvement with his left hand was as a result of watching how effective Kyrie is with the ability to easily switch between hands.
I think that’s why his adding strength, finishing through contact and drawing fouls are the most important skill he can develop. The ECF dunk on LeBron is the dream. With respect to drawing fouls, if he isn’t shooting well, I think getting to the freethrow line more consistently would help to address those concerns and generally help him to be more engaged with the game.
There could some of that, but I'm pretty sure that I read somewhere last year near the end that the book on Jaylen was to make him go left. That's far from abnormal. And any of us who played as kids or coached kids have heard or doled out that advice. But apparently the word was out that he was not going to beat you to his left, and clearly he worked on it.
If he wants to draw fouls, he's going to need to a) make his off-the-dribble 3 part of the other team's scouting report priorities b) improve his handle.
Jaylen was able to draw more fouls simply by improving his handle/left hand, since it meant defenders could no longer predict where he was going and be in position. Now that they're generally out of position, he's basically doubled his FT rate. Thing is though, Jaylen is a freak among freaks wrt his first step burst, probably top 2-5% in the NBA for that, so just adding a handle to his athleticism and ability to hit open 3s gets him a ton of room.
Unfortunately for Jayson, he needs (a) as well as (b), because, unlike Jaylen, he doesn't have that elite first step. It's a solvable problem: Luka and Harden don't have that insane step either, but they essentially mimic it with crazy handles PLUS a lethal stepback 3, which is a shot that's too high value to concede. Until Jayson can add something like that, it's going to be hard for him to gain the advantage needed to draw fouls.
The other path for him, which leaves him (as HRB predicts) in Hayward rather than Harden territory, would be to mimic Hayward. Catch the ball on the move in advantage situations, operate patiently off the PnR, and have enough strength to finish in the lane.
I think Tatum is a hard enough worker that he likely hits the Hayward end of the comp. When you add in his likely monster defense, that's probably a top-15 or so player. But his ability to generate his own 3s at high volume in iso and on PnR is the X skill that could take him to top-end stardom. I'm probably a little higher than Tatum than HRB because of his defensive upside, but I basically agree about his offensive projections, although there's a path for him to exceed those.
His assist percentage is up this season, from 10% to 12.1%. It's coming.
And I don't think he dribble as much as you might think. The average time per touch the ball is in his hands is 2.48 seconds. That's less than Jaylen. It's not in the top 100 or so of guys in the league. He averages 1.5 dribbles per touch.
Someone like Andrew Wiggins is 4 seconds/touch and 3.2 dribbles.
I don’t get the polished argument. Tatum is still a pretty immature player. There’s so much he has to learn. He plays out of control and gets his mind set on something and wills it no matter what. He isn’t going to beat guys with his first step every time and so he needs to play in control and use his array of skills to create space, draw fouls, or move the chess pieces to his teammates advantage.
There are times when he gets into something and you’ll actually see his teammates start to fall back on defense before he has taken the shot.
Another example — Early in this season he was feeling confident in his 3pter and he was taking them without hesitation. He was taking pull-ups and step backs and immediately pulling the trigger on assisted jumpers. He’s too much of a believer in the hot hand. He’ll make a shot or two and immediately take a dumb heat check. Worse, right now he’s in a bit of a 3pt rut and you can tell he believes he’s in a 3pt rut. Not only is it likely self fulfilling as his lack of confidence affects his shot, but it affects all of his decision making. He’s taking fewer 3s than he was early in the season, he’s not taking the pull up threes, he’s hesitating on what should be quick trigger assisted threes and doing a crappy up fake into a drive, and he’s not taking the step back (this might be ok for now).
I love the guy. He’s probably going to get there. But he’s real far from a finished product.
There are times when he gets into something and you’ll actually see his teammates start to fall back on defense before he has taken the shot.
Another example — Early in this season he was feeling confident in his 3pter and he was taking them without hesitation. He was taking pull-ups and step backs and immediately pulling the trigger on assisted jumpers. He’s too much of a believer in the hot hand. He’ll make a shot or two and immediately take a dumb heat check. Worse, right now he’s in a bit of a 3pt rut and you can tell he believes he’s in a 3pt rut. Not only is it likely self fulfilling as his lack of confidence affects his shot, but it affects all of his decision making. He’s taking fewer 3s than he was early in the season, he’s not taking the pull up threes, he’s hesitating on what should be quick trigger assisted threes and doing a crappy up fake into a drive, and he’s not taking the step back (this might be ok for now).
I love the guy. He’s probably going to get there. But he’s real far from a finished product.
The "polished" thing is basically because he had good footwork in college. Sometimes people take years to correctly update narratives.
Bakes has been a degenerate gambler since this subforum was created to shield Bill Simmons from criticism by a regular poster at SOSH.
There was at least one play during the Nets game where Tatum had the ball at the perimeter and the Nets were playing 2-3 zone. He beats his defender, driving right into the teeth of the zone and then he... stops and takes an off-balance floater? If I recall correctly, the Nets were able to push the long rebound to get a fast break bucket the other way. A little court awareness/vision would have gone a long way there.
maybe I misinterpreted your initial post #1 on that thread or the first page...
https://sonsofsamhorn.net/index.php?threads/the-2018-nba-draft.19534/
you weren't wrong, you were just early
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I can’t remember someone going out of his way to not admit to having been correct, just to protect his later self from having been incorrect.maybe I misinterpreted your initial post #1 on that thread or the first page...
https://sonsofsamhorn.net/index.php?threads/the-2018-nba-draft.19534/
you weren't wrong, you were just early
The loyalty to the chronological self is admirable.
Tatum's clearest path to stardom/comp is starting to look like Paul George. He's killing it on defense, and his offensive stats/usage look really similar to pre-injury PG's. If he can build on that in the way PG did (particularly getting comfortable self-generating looks from 3), we could have a good one on our hands. I'm impressed with how he stays focused on defense and contributes to winning even when shots don't go.
Tatum's defensive anticipation skills in rotation are very good. He is overplaying the passing lane on the perimeter which is leading to an uptick in steals that turn into transition dunks. It's a smart gamble, especially when the team plays smallish and the guards turn up the on-ball defense.
I like the Paul George (age 22/23) comp to JT (21), the numbers are very similar. Right now, PG is 6'8" 220, JT is 6'8" 205. I believe we'll see "peak Tatum" when he adds 15lbs of muscle due to maturity and his summer work.
who do you consider Jaylen Brown's comp?
in the holiday spirit, our two Lords are a-leaping
https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/g/georgpa01.html
https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/t/tatumja01.html
The reason I liked it when I thought of it is that it gets at the fact that a lot of Tatum's current value is coming from is defense, but also shows the path for him to improve his offense. Much like, PG, he does better in a 1A role than a #1.
George is someone he's said he respects a lot, and I'd be surprised if he hasn't thought of the comp himself. Beyond stat similarities, they both had heavy playoff responsibilities at young ages.
I honestly have no idea who Jaylen's comp is. It's rare to have a guy who makes the kind of leaps he has in basic skills like ball-handling and awareness this late in his career. Jaylen is a weird Frankenstein player who has strengths and flaws that don't usually come in the same package. He's an odd combination of low innate BBIQ + high learning ability + uber-elite athleticism.
So when I'm looking for a comp, I'm looking for other guys who learned very mechanically and consistently. Maybe smaller Siakam? Kawhi is another guy who learned the offensive end very mechanically and progressively over time. I'm not comparing Jaylen to them in terms of exact game or top-end results (although Siakam isn't crazy at all), but more in how I expect him to keep adding things over time more so than most guys already in their 4th/5th years would.
Siakam can't really be compared to anyone, from where he was to where he is today is unprecedented growth. Jaylen was a top three pick, Siakam was a late first rounder.
Jaylen maybe is like a bigger Oladipo? High lottery pick, very athletic, but took longer than expected to kind of put it all together.
He isn't a great comp, but I remember a few seasons ago Zach Lowe was talking about Tobias Harris making the leap, and he talked about Harris being a guy who improved by 5 percent each year, and then one year he improved 12 percent and that made a major difference in how people evaluated him as a player. Brown has made steady improvements to his game, with the biggest leap probably coming this year.
All of this, for both Tatum and Brown, also has to stem from playing without Kyrie (and Rozier, Horford and Morris, to an extent). The attitude of the team is just different, and that has been because there is now an acceptance that the future of this team is through Brown and Tatum. When Kyrie was here, even if he was out injured, there was still a philosophy around the team that whatever Tatum/Brown accomplished while Kyrie was out, things were going to have to revert back to the status quo once Kyrie came back, or worse, when the Celtics traded for Brown and/or Tatum for Anthony Davis. I think that more than anything has empowered Brown and Tatum both to be more aggressive with the ball and willing to make more mistakes on offense because they know they are the future of this team, and not just trade bait or a second or third option.
Walker not just pounding the ball into the floor like Kyrie is also a huge advantage to the Js. I'm not sure what the advanced metrics have to say, but from the eye test it feels like the Celtics are getting into their offense earlier and swinging the ball with more aplomb than last years team. Getting rid of noted ball stoppers Rozier and Morris also helps, of course, but it just feels like there is less "guy dribbles the ball for ten seconds and then gets into the offensive set" plays than last year. The ball is being moved around the floor and has enabled the Js to pounce on late-arriving defenses.
Jaylen maybe is like a bigger Oladipo? High lottery pick, very athletic, but took longer than expected to kind of put it all together.
He isn't a great comp, but I remember a few seasons ago Zach Lowe was talking about Tobias Harris making the leap, and he talked about Harris being a guy who improved by 5 percent each year, and then one year he improved 12 percent and that made a major difference in how people evaluated him as a player. Brown has made steady improvements to his game, with the biggest leap probably coming this year.
All of this, for both Tatum and Brown, also has to stem from playing without Kyrie (and Rozier, Horford and Morris, to an extent). The attitude of the team is just different, and that has been because there is now an acceptance that the future of this team is through Brown and Tatum. When Kyrie was here, even if he was out injured, there was still a philosophy around the team that whatever Tatum/Brown accomplished while Kyrie was out, things were going to have to revert back to the status quo once Kyrie came back, or worse, when the Celtics traded for Brown and/or Tatum for Anthony Davis. I think that more than anything has empowered Brown and Tatum both to be more aggressive with the ball and willing to make more mistakes on offense because they know they are the future of this team, and not just trade bait or a second or third option.
Walker not just pounding the ball into the floor like Kyrie is also a huge advantage to the Js. I'm not sure what the advanced metrics have to say, but from the eye test it feels like the Celtics are getting into their offense earlier and swinging the ball with more aplomb than last years team. Getting rid of noted ball stoppers Rozier and Morris also helps, of course, but it just feels like there is less "guy dribbles the ball for ten seconds and then gets into the offensive set" plays than last year. The ball is being moved around the floor and has enabled the Js to pounce on late-arriving defenses.
I like the Oladipo comparison. The Tobias Harris improvement one also makes sense, and obviously Jaylen is a far superior athlete to Harris.
When Kemba is at his best, he definitely creates more space. He also seems to attack more productive parts of the floor than Kyrie. I'd like to see them really work Kemba+Jaylen together intentionally, more, since their games could complement each other well.
I have added a feature to the DARKO spreadsheet to see a player's career progression. This uses my own pretty simple SPM, which is box-score only, and so doesn't love Tatum (who shines in plus/minus metrics), but provides a reasonable way of tracking a player's career trajectory. I would not recommend using it to compare against players due to the lack of use of plus-minus data here. The link is here, and you can enter any active player's name in the orange box.
The blue line is an estimate of the players' "true talent", updated daily. The orange line is just smoothed a bit (although the blue line is itself very smoothed, as it reflects a talent estimate already):
Here's Jaylen Brown:
Here's Tatum:
And here's Paul George:
George really took a leap around this time in his career, while Tatum is still pretty flat all told.
The blue line is an estimate of the players' "true talent", updated daily. The orange line is just smoothed a bit (although the blue line is itself very smoothed, as it reflects a talent estimate already):
Here's Jaylen Brown:
Here's Tatum:
And here's Paul George:
George really took a leap around this time in his career, while Tatum is still pretty flat all told.
Isn’t it a bit weird to talk about Tatum being flat when he’s killing it in most plus/minus metrics? I.e. isn’t that potentially more an indictment of the measurement tool than of Tatum?
My intonation here is non-confrontational. Anecdotally/eye-test, it’s seemed this year that when the Celtics play well, they are able to bring star players down into the muck/rockfights with them, which contributes to winning while still leaving those stars looking better in box score stats.
Brown still reminds me of this guy: https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/w/wilkido01.html
Except with a 3pt shot (2019) and better defense.
He's now like 3-4 months older than DW was entering the league.
Except with a 3pt shot (2019) and better defense.
He's now like 3-4 months older than DW was entering the league.
You're not wrong generally; the lack of plus minus data here is leaving out half the picture. I don't think Tatum is fairly represented here, as he's always been a plus/minus star. That said, it's useful to look at directionally for how a given player is doing. Put another way, if I added in plus/minus data here, Tatum's absolute ranking would spike from ~0 to +2/+3 or something, but the curve would likewise look mostly flat. The reason is that Tatum was killing it on the plus/minus metrics last year as well, even when his shot selection was brutal. His PIPM was +2.07 as a rookie, and then +2.35 last year.
In general, you're correct that it would be better to have plus/minus data in there, but it wouldn't change the picture for Tatum very much in terms of improvement (just the absolute level would move up).
OK, I see what you're going for now, makes sense. My George comparison was more stylistic/eye test/rough statistical rather than about the pace of progress.
Haha. As I said, the point was to show player growth, not to compare players against each other.
Actually pretty intrigued now looking at the graphs more. So the (learned/trained) hypothesis is that most players have their own +/- baseline/adjustment, but then within that personal style of play, their own boxscore stats can show a lot about their relative improvement?