Unlocking the Secret — Why Jayson Tatum Must Pass His Way to Superstardom
Jayson Tatum is knocking on the door of superstardom. He may be “top fiye” in our hearts, but realistically, he’s sitting somewhere around the 15th best player in the league. That’s an absolute home run of a draft pick, but short of the 04 Pistons, I can’t think of a team that won where their best player wasn’t a clear cut top 10 player. I will humbly submit that Jayson Tatum does not need to get any better at scoring the basketball to make that jump into the top 10, but instead must become a more willing passer and playmaker, and not necessarily a more skilled one, to truly unlock his superstar potential.
Bill Simmons (bear with me here people!) opens up his Book of Basketball with a conversation with Isiah Thomas (the asshole not our beloved King in the Fourth). Their discussion centers around “The Secret” of basketball. Isiah ultimately concludes that “the Secret of basketball is that it’s not about basketball.” Simmons elaborates:
Nobody writes about The Secret because of a general lack of sophistication about basketball; even the latest ‘revolution’ of basketball statistics centers more around evaluating players against one another over capturing their effect on a team. Numbers help, but only to a certain degree. You still have to watch the games. The fans don’t get it. Actually, it goes deeper than that — I’m not sure who gets it. We measure players by numbers, only the playoffs roll around and teams that play together, kill themselves defensively, sacrifice personal success and ignore statistics invariably win the title.
Ignoring the somewhat arrogant tone, the “sacrifice personal success” comment makes me think of Giannis relentlessly attacking the rim and going to the line despite embarrassing himself there on occasion. It didn’t matter, he knew his team needed him to be aggressive to be successful, ego be damned (looking at you Ben Simmons).
In order for the Celtics and Tatum to take the next step, he needs to buy into this concept. Post deadline, Tatum took another leap that many folks outside of Boston have seemingly ignored. Tatum’s ugly COVID riddled February clouded the judgment of a lot of talking heads. Post trade deadline, his stats are fucking nuts for a high volume guy playing with almost no help and a rotating cast of misfits — 29–8.2–4.2 with a 47.9/39.7/87.8 slash line, good for a 60.8 TS%. That puts him elite company as a scorer. How much better can he realistically expect to get at scoring the ball? At some point, a player has reached a level of volume and efficiency that should be plenty good enough to be a superstar, but the other facets of their game must come along as well.
And guess what, the Celtics went 15–11 in games Tatum played after the deadline and his Net Rating was a solid but unspectacular 2.8. Tatum drives winning with his scoring, but he does not drive winning at the level of the elite stars in the league. The reason he doesn’t is because he has yet to unlock The Secret. He doesn’t make his teammates substantially better, yet.
Here’s the frustrating thing with Tatum, he is completely capable of being a borderline elite playmaker. He’s got almost every pass in his bag. He can hit pocket passes, behind the back no looks to shooters, sweet little drop offs, one handed bullet passes . . . I think you get the picture. Hell those first three are from the same game! Again, while it’s frustrating that he CAN make these passes and does not always, that should be exciting for Cs fans as well. Becoming a more willing passer is much easier than figuring out how to read a defense and being physically capable of exploiting it. I will show you what I mean, but first, as always, the stats.
Where Tatum Ranks Among High Usage Wings (Spoiler: It’s not Great)
The chart below is going to show you where Tatum ranks among qualifying non-guards (NBA.com is funky, I put in “Forward” as a filter but Embiid shows up and so does Shake Milton. What does that mean, I have no fucking clue, but I’m just going to say “non-guard”) in certain important metrics. I’ve isolated only high usage players. I wanted to see where he ranks among his peers. So for Ast%, I only took players with a USG% over 25, and Drives were players who drive more than 10 times a game, etc.
Unfortunately NBA.com doesn’t track passing data on PnR Ballhandler Possessions and Isos, but I would venture to guess he ranks much better as a PnR Ballhandler and similarly poor on Isos. His ast% is putrid on drives and post ups, but ok overall, I think it’s being propped up by his pick and roll playmaking somewhat.
With that said, his passing stats are fine, but not indicative of an offensive hub. Tatum’s playmaking is much closer to Pascal Siakam than it is to Jimmy Butler right now, and that’s not a good thing. I’m willing to forgive his Ast to Pass% a bit because he had a TON of passes to non-shooters and offensive zeros last year like Grant Williams and Semi O. What I’m not willing to forgive is how often he passes out of drives and post ups, or rather how rarely he does so. Those are two playtypes where you are putting pressure on the rim, the defense has to help. Tatum isn’t even really *looking* to pass most of the time on these, and that’s the real problem. Let me show you what I mean.
Leveraging His Leverage
As I said above, Tatum has morphed into an elite high volume scorer. That naturally means he’s getting a ton of defensive attention. At times, I don’t think he truly realizes how dialed in defenses are to him. I mean the Nets basically triple covered him all series, Tatum’s side of the floor is TOTALLY EMPTY! The craziest part about this is that Tatum turned that possession into a mid range jumper, he made it but that’s not the point. He’s being triple covered, SOMEONE is open. Let’s break down some more examples.
Passing on Drives
Tatum isn’t known for his attacking play, but he actually led the Celtics in drives per game last year, and compares favorably to all but the most aggressive attackers. He was borderline elite at finishing at the rim last season so it’s no surprise he draws a ton of attention when he gets into the paint. It’s this attention that makes his low Pass% on drives (percent of drives that end in a pass) so damning. For reference, Demar DeRozan, a guy who has aged into a borderline elite playmaker, passes on 45% of his drives to Tatum’s 29.7%.
Let’s look at some examples. This first play shows the best and worse of Tatum’s game. He absolutely shakes Aaron Gordon and gets into the lane with ease. Rob Williams, an elite rim finishes with Charmin soft hands, is wide open for an easy drop off. Tatum takes a bullshit floater. This one is similarly bad although the shot clock is running low so I get why he put the shot up, but look at how open Jaylen is. He’s got 3 seconds on the clock when he goes into the shot, that’s more than enough time to hit Jaylen and have him get a normal jumper off. Tatum doesn’t bother, up goes another bullshit floater. Or this play where he meanders into the lane and fires up a no chance mid range jumper. I mean look at poor Payton Pritchard in the near corner begging for a pass. The result? bullshit mid range jumper.
This is the part of the program where I tell you that Tatum shot 66% (good!) from 0–4 feet and a putrid 36.7% from 5–14 feet. Teams are begging for Tatum to take bad floaters in the lane, especially at the expense of getting all the way to the basket or hitting shooters for spot ups.
Passing from the Post
Tatum didn’t post up a ton last year, 2.6 per game, but it’s something I’d like to see more of. What I really would like to see more of is him passing out of the post. It’s incredible how much attention he gets with a simple post up. He should be able to rack up assists and easy offense for the Celtics. Alas, he passes a measly 26% of the time. I mean, look at how wide open Jaylen Brown is here once Tatum gets into his move. Tatum needs to leverage that attention for easy shots, not put up yet another bullshit mid range jumper. In this one, Tatum backs his way into the high post, but almost immediately PP’s guy helps and leave PP, an elite 3pt shooter, completely unguarded. There’s like 1,000 feet of space, and that’s a very easy pass with his back to the basket like that. PP should have relocated closer to the break, but Tatum never even looks his way. He’s thinking bullshit mid range from the second he turned his back. That type of decision making, or lack thereof, needs to stop if Tatum wants to take a leap.
Move the Ball and Everyone Plays Better
You will often hear the phrase “the ball has energy.” When a team is sharing the ball and playing together, shots just seem to fall. Role players get to “feel the ball” and get more into the game. Many times this correlates with more effort on the defensive end as guys get invested in the roles. This is the essence of The Secret. Sometimes you just need to pass out of a drive so another guy can get a touch. True superstars trust their teammates in spite of their flaws.
Your best player needs to set that tone. Tatum did it at times last year, but if he becomes a more willing passer, combined with his elite scoring, the league should be put on notice. Tatum is already a wonderful player, but he’s got the ability to be so much more if he simply shifts his mindset a bit. As Bill Russell once said — “I always thought that the most important measure of how good a game I played was how much better I made my teammates play.”
