Turn on a radio, open your Twitter app or go to a sports bar in this city and you can’t avoid two conversations: 1. Tuukka Rask (the haters and losers are just waiting for the next Bruins loss); 2. Jayson Tatum.
Everyone is clamoring for Tatum to be a better leader and defender.
While the latter is more about consistency, the former has always stuck out to me as a huge question mark going forward. I know Tatum can play better defense. I do not know if Tatum can be the leader, in a traditional sense, that many are begging him to be.
“I’m sure the people who watch the games and give their opinion on what happens kind of want you to be a certain way and think that if you’re yelling and screaming and stuff like that, that necessarily makes you a leader,” Tatum said last week. “It works for some guys. Certain that we can name plenty of other guys who are special and led their team and, I don’t know, in a quieter way just because of their demeanor.”
Not everyone can be a leader. That’s obvious. But only a select handful in the NBA can be the best player and the traditional leader of the team. At the minimum, your best player needs to lead by example. Tatum is a lead by example type of guy.
Here is a thought that I’ve been holding onto awhile and seems to ring more true as the games pass by: Jayson Tatum may end up being Carmelo Anthony ... and that’s just fine!
Anthony is a Top 10 all time scorer who always had questions about defense, leadership and making teammates around him better. The same questions many of us have about the Celtics current star.
Carmelo never became the true No. 1 guy in the NBA despite filling up the box score every night. He was also never a get-in-your-face type of leader.
On Feb. 25, 2020, Tatum and the Celtics visited Carmelo and the Portland Trail Blazers. The two exchanged jerseys after the game. Tatum spoke about the moment and said "Oh man. Besides Kobe, Melo's probably one of my top three favorite players. I studied him so much growing up. I'm one of his biggest fans."
I’m not ready to write Tatum off as being an eventual alpha on a team, a plus-defender and a guy who can make teammates better. He’s just 23 years old and has continued to improve every year since entering the league.
Tatum is headed towards a half dozen seasons of 25 points per game or better just like Carmelo had.
Check out these stat lines from their age 22 seasons:
● Tatum: 26.4 ppg, 7.4 rebounds, 4.3 assists on a 46/38/86 FG/3PT/FT shooting split.
● Carmelo: 28.9 ppg, 6 rebounds, 3.8 assists on a 47/27/80 FG/3PT/FT shooting split.
Based upon production and the eye test, Tatum is arguably a better all-around player than Carmelo during his prime. The scary thing for the NBA is JT still has room for improvement.
The Celtics tumultuous season can’t be blamed on Jayson. John Hollinger, writer at The Athletic and former Memphis Grizzlies VP of Basketball Ops, had Tatum on the All-NBA Second Team. Carmelo didn’t achieve that until he was 25 years old.
If my comparison of Tatum to Carmelo career-wise rings true, then Danny Ainge has some real work to do to build a championship winning roster around Jayson. The Knicks failed to do so and never built a team that could compete with LeBron in the East. Melo never had a teammate in New York as talented as Jaylen Brown. Hell, he didn’t have a teammate as offensively talented as Kemba Walker either.
Trading Jayson Tatum is absurd to even discuss. Wizards head coach Scott Brooks said just last week that Tatum is “gonna be an MVP in this league soon.”
Maybe Tatum’s floor career-wise is Carmelo -- an all-time scorer with no MVPs or NBA Championship.
But if the improvement continues and Brooks is right about the MVP award, then forget about comparisons to Anthony. We’ll be talking about Tatum in the same all-time great conversations with guys like Larry Bird, Kobe, etc.
While this Celtics season is essentially over, every game we get to watch Tatum play is something we shouldn’t take for granted.