Steph Curry has long been a player who has been able to shred any and all NBA defenses.
Watching Curry do that to the Celtics Saturday was no surprise. He’s a legitimate Top 5 player and the greatest shooter in basketball history.
The Warriors roster is average to below average without Curry and a healthy Klay Thompson. When a guy is in the zone like Curry and Jayson Tatum were Saturday night, it makes offense that much easier.
And we are now getting to the point where Tatum is entering that superstar stratosphere. He’s a walking bucket. What’s the game-plan for guarding a 6-foot-10 forward with incredible shot making ability? One defender, two defenders, traps, etc. It doesn’t matter.
Tatum is now a Top 10 NBA player. This is what a true NBA superstar does. And not just for one game. And not just in the regular season too. Tatum had a massive run in last year’s playoffs and has continued to show improvement in 2020-21.
"You can tell the game has slowed down for him, just in the way he picks and chooses his spots and how he kind of manages the game,” Curry said after Saturday’s shootout in Boston. “He's shooting the ball a lot better from the perimeter, but when that game slows down, I don't know if it's four or five years in, whatever he is, that's when you become lethal.”
It wasn’t just Saturday where we saw Tatum take his game to the next level. Just look at Tatum’s last 13 games heading into Monday night.
Jayson Tatum last 13 games before Monday vs Bulls (NBA rank):
● 29.5 PPG (4th), eight boards pr game (33rd), 3.8 assists per game, 3.6 made threes a game
● 51/41/91 percent (FG/3PT/FT)
● Celtics have 10-3 record
Only 12 times in NBA history by eight different players has a 50/40/90 shooting split lasted an entire season.
Tatum is on an unreal, efficient streak. The scary thing for the rest of the league is that this may be who Tatum is.
Gilbert Arenas turned a lot of heads last month when he put Tatum in the same conversation as Kobe Bryant as far as potential.
“Kobe was great at everything. Midrange. Getting to his spot. And that’s what Tatum is finding out he’s great at too is getting to his spot,” Arenas added when breaking down Tatum’s game on an episode of Players Breakdown. “No matter what the defense is giving you, you are getting to your destination. And when you get there, you rise up and hit the shot.”
Maybe -- and hear me out on this -- we are already at that point.
Take a look at the per 36 minutes stats to get a fair comparison:
● Tatum 2020-21: 26 ppg, 7.3 rebounds, 4.4 assists
● Kobe career average: 24.9 ppg, 5.2 rebounds, 4.7 assists
● Tatum FG/3PT/FT shooting splits: 45.7/38.7/87 percent
● Kobe FG/3PT/FT shooting splits: 44.7/32.9/83 percent
Tatum statistically is a more efficient scorer this year than Kobe was on average in his career. And he has room for improvement.
Of the top 25 scorers in the NBA, only Nikola Vucevic (2.5), Jaylen Brown (4.3) and Kyrie (4.0) have less free throws attempted per game than Tatum (4.8). In 10 games in April, Tatum has increased his free throws to six per game.
Yes, Kobe has incredible statistics. Tatum and Brown can fill up a stat sheet. We see the improvement from both year over year. But what made Kobe great was the intangibles that Arenas noted early.
“Two years, three years years from now, you’ll see a player who’s dominating this game on a Kobe level,” Arenas said. “Because he possesses all those intangibles that’s going to make him comparable to that guy.”
Kobe’s leadership, ability in the clutch, toughness, etc were admirable and things of legend. That is what will truly take the Celtics from good to great.
Whether Tatum has that inside him is the million dollar question.