Jayson Tatum the Playmaker
If Jayson Tatum can continue to progress his playmaking ability, he'll enter MVP discussions.
When I made this newsletter I knew there’d be gaps in the time I wrote. I didn’t expect it so soon, but please forgive me.
It’s a funny story actually, last weekend I went to the Raptors-Celtics preseason game. I had a great time, then as I was walking towards the train to go home, I reached for my Charlie Card and realized my pocket felt lighter than earlier in the evening… I had lost my car keys!
That led to a few days of fun, but all is resolved.
Anyway, lets go back to the basketball.
Jayson Tatum is entering his 5th season in the NBA, and if there’s been one bright spot on this planet since January 1, 2020, it’s been him.
I won’t waste everyone’s time outlining how he’s gotten to this point (because we’d be here for awhile), instead I’ll focus on his final 24 games from last season (18 regular season games, one play-in game, then 5 games against the Brooklyn Nets in the first round of the NBA playoffs).
In those 24 games, Tatum averaged 30.9 PPG, 7.9 RPG, and 4.5 APG while shooting 46.2% from the field, 40.6% from three and 89.2% from the free throw line. He had a true shooting percentage of 60.4% (which is elite!)
The secret to Tatum’s scoring success to finish last season was his ability to get to the free throw line. Tatum has always been a great free throw shooter, but he’s struggled at times to get to the line consistently. However, in these 24 games, he had a .387 FTr (FTr = FTA/FGA), which is great when you’re a high volume shooter because it means you’re creating easy points for yourself.
The 8.5 FTA/g he averaged in this time would have put him 5th in the NBA last season behind Joel Embiid (10.7 FTA/g), Giannis Antetokounmpo (9.5 FTA/g), Zion Williamson (8.7 FTA/g) and Trae Young (8.7 FTA/g).
During the past two seasons Tatum has 25 games with at least 10 free throw attempts, and in those games he averaged 34.2 PPG; the Celtics are 16-9 (.640) in those games.
Bully ball Tatum will be key to him racking up points, but that is not the focus of this piece.
The 4.5 APG (and his continued growth as a playmaker) catches my eye.
It was just a preseason game, but last Saturday Tatum had 7 assists against the Toronto Raptors.
In 349 career games (plus one play-in game), only 16 times has Tatum gotten at least 7 assists; the Celtics are 10-6 (.600) in those games.
Those games have all been within the last two seasons as he has had a larger role (and responsibility) in Boston’s offense.
New head coach Ime Udoka has stressed the importance of Tatum continuing to develop as a playmaker, and he’s not wrong.
Assists involve a lot of things going right, not only the pass coming from one player, but the player receiving the pass making the shot.
One of the most damaging things from Boston’s roster last year was the “double big” lineup (mainly featuring Tristian Thompson and Daniel Theis), lineups that were destined to be inefficient on offense.
Go further, as Celtics Blog writer Greg Brueck-Cassoli noted in a piece on the new Celtics offense for 2021-2022, and you’ll see an encouraging discovery for this season:
…65% of Boston’s non-garbage-time possessions included at least two of Daniel Theis, Robert Williams, Tristan Thompson, Grant Williams, or Semi Ojeleye.
Theis and Timelord (as Brueck-Cassoli notes) are not bad offensive players. However, when you have combinations of these two on the court, their limitations quickly become more prominent. Tristian Thompson is not a perimeter shooter by any stretch of the imagination (and that goes for long twos as well). Same goes for Robert Williams, although he does appear to be working on longer twos this season. Theis some success with long twos, but was not efficient from 3. Same for Grant. And Semi Ojeleye took most of his shots from 3, but I will go to my grave arguing with the looks he got, he should have been more successful.
These lineups, especially with Jayson Tatum in them, were limited on the perimeter, clogged lanes, and did not have the necessary ability to move the ball effectively.
But this season… Theis, Thompson and Ojeleye are gone. The biggest positive for Tatum will be having Al Horford this season as the second big next to Robert Williams. He is a much better floor spacer than the other players listed above (in addition to a solid playmaker).
Just look at the pass Tatum makes to Horford at 0:19 in the video above. It’s a simple pass, Horford is open and he can drill that with ease. That happened with Timelord on the court. Buckets like that were not possible last season when Theis and Thompson shared the court.
The other issue with those guys from last season is most of them were toast if you asked them to dribble more than once (looking at you Semi). That’s where guys like Josh Richardson (see: 0:40 in the video above) will make a major difference as well, increasing the overall ball movement of the squad.
I think the group around Tatum this season is much deeper and consists of much more competent players (especially on the wing) than last season. There appears to be signs of big development from young players such as Romeo Langford (see: 1:23 in the video above) and Aaron Nesmith. Payton Pritchard shot 41.1% from three last season and doesn’t appear to have gotten worse. How the likes of Horford, Richardson and Dennis Schroder fill in for Thompson, Ojeleye and Walker will be key, but I believe they have the potential to make Tatum’s life easier, and execute on passes from him.
Jayson Tatum is knocking on the door of year-to-year MVP contention. It could very well begin this season, but very soon he will be in these discussions every season.
If you look at MVP winners since 2009, each one has had an assist percentage of at least 26.7%. Remove Kevin Durant’s 2014 season from this list and the threshold rises to an AST% of 30.3%. Even when Steph Curry was taking over the world in 2016 averaging 30.1 PPG, 33.7% of baskets scored when he was on the floor where from assists by him.
Tatum can score with the best of the best in this league, but if he wants to be viewed as a no question top tier player in this league, he’ll need to continue to improve his playmaking. To his credit, his AST% has improved every season since entering the NBA (20.3% last season), but to be considered the all-around offensive weapon of his peers, he needs to get to at least 26% (which will require help from his teammates).
The only perennial elite wing of late who was not as good of a playmaker as Tatum is at this moment is Kawhi Leonard, who never had an AST% above 20% prior to joining the Los Angeles Clippers. However, since joining LA, Leonard’s AST% is 25.7%. Some will argue the Clippers offense has been limited and lacked a true playmaker since the arrival of Leonard and Paul George, but they are also the team most similarly structured to Boston (see: Tatum and Jaylen Brown), and no one would ever shy away from having two wings such as those two duos lead their team; you make it work.
I think we will see a jump in Tatum the playmaker this season due to the new offensive pieces surrounding him, and if we do, it could lead to the first of many MVP campaigns.