You don't run isolations for outfielders, shortstops or third basemen.
Even Tom Brady wouldn't have made this Patriots team a Super Bowl contender.
Patrice Bergeron. Brad Marchand. Linus Ullmark. You need all of them and then some.
And then there is Jayson Tatum.
It's not rocket science to suggest that an NBA team can compete with just a few go-to guys. It's a chief reason why the Celtics have been able to do what they do riding the coattails of Tatum and Jaylen Brown.
But the Celtics' chief star is at another level. He has fashioned himself into the conversation of perhaps the league's best player on perhaps the league's best team. And when you have that dynamic in this league, that leads to the reality that there isn't a more valuable professional athlete in all of New England.
Case in point: The Celtics' 117-108 win over the Pistons Saturday night.
Forget the fact that the win came on the backend of a back-to-back. Disregard that Tatum finished with 43 points, making seven of 14 3-pointers. What you should soak in this time around the was the fact that Tatum carried his team to this win without three starters - Brown, Al Horford and Rob Williams - along with key sixth-man Malcolm Brogdon.
When building his resume for 2022-23 NBA MVP - and Boston sports MVP - this was just the latest in what has been a laundry list of accomplishments. He owns the most points in the league, averaging 32.3 per game, including just more than 34 points a contest during the C's recent six-game win streak.
"This is definitely the best I've ever felt to start a season," Tatum told reporters. "It kind of felt like how I was playing toward the end of the last season when we really went on that run. It feels great to start a season like this because I definitely know what it feels like to be on the other side."
Tatum has found himself into an entirely different debate, one that hasn't been in these parts since a certain quarterback left town.
