After a tough shooting game in Boston’s Game 1 loss to Milwaukee, Jayson Tatum bounced back along with the rest of the Celtics in Game 2, dropping 29 points on 10-of-20 shooting while also dishing out eight assists.
It was the latest big game in a season and postseason full of them for Tatum, who continues to see his star rise. He is expected to be in contention for a spot on the All-NBA First Team, and would likely be a serious MVP candidate if he had started the season as strong as he finished it.
Stadium’s Jeff Goodman is aiming even higher with his praise. Appearing on The Greg Hill Show Wednesday morning, Goodman said he believes Tatum is “the best all-around player in the NBA” right now.
“The thing with Jayson Tatum now is, there’s no hole in his game. He’s the best all-around player in the NBA, in my opinion,” Goodman said. “All around, no weakness in his game. He can score from three. He can pull up. He can finish through contact. He rebounds his position. He’s a really good passer now. He’s a really good defender.
“Like Ja Morant, not a great shooter. Giannis [Antetokounmpo], not a very good shooter. KD [Kevin Durant], obviously, still kind of the guy, but he’s not as good defensively as consistently as Jayson Tatum. Part of it is just the stage of his career. Once you get older, no matter who you are, you start to slow down defensively and pick your spots. Jayson Tatum obviously isn’t there yet. He’s gotten better. I mean, he wasn’t very good defensively in college, and I felt like even his first year in the league.
“We forget what he was even a couple years ago. The offensive end, he couldn’t finish through contact. He didn’t want contact. Now he wants it, he absorbs it, he finishes through it. Just listening to him last night, he’s gotten so much more mature about everything, about the right things, instead of worrying about maybe the second contract or some of those things, his own numbers, his points. He could always do this and make people better. He’s just matured.”
Goodman said that one area where that maturity is showing up is that Tatum, along with Jaylen Brown, Marcus Smart and the rest of the Celtics, bought into the way Ime Udoka wants him to play and has become a much more unselfish player.
“It shows kind of the maturity of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart to understand it, to be able to look in the mirror a little bit and say, ‘You know what? This dude’s right. We’re not playing the right way,’” Goodman said. “I talked to Tatum last night about it. I always said that at times, it looked like Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown had never played basketball together. I asked him that and he said, ‘I think that’s a little bit harsh, a little bit too much.’ I said, ‘That’s fair, but you guys are playing off each other so much better.’
“I mean, they had half the team’s assists last night, the two of them. You never would’ve imagined that last year or the first part of this year. They’re giving the ball up knowing that even if they don’t get it back, someone’s gonna get a good shot. They’re just not shot-hunting like they were.”
Listen to the full interview with Goodman here:
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