You’ve Considered Jaylen Brown, now it’s Time to Appreciate Jayson Tatum — He’s back to Pre-COVID Tatum and That’s all that Matters

Tatum has had a weird fucking year. Frankly we all have, so I guess it’s better to say for a millionaire athlete, Tatum has had a weird fucking season. His post-Covid stretch was ugly at times, encouraging at others, and frankly depressing for many fans, especially those of us that live in cold climates (February is the worst).

All the weirdness aside, all the frustrating losses, all the bickering between Celtics fans aside, the single most important thing to get from this season is that Tatum’s ascension at the beginning of the season is most likely not a fluke. Let’s look at the numbers. I’ve rounded anything that’s a .8 or .9 up, anything that’s .1 or .2 down, and just gave the decimal for anything else.

PRE-COVID Tatum — 27–7–4 on 47.4/44/89 with 2.4 TOV and a steal and a block. This is good for a 58.8% TS and a 6.2 net rating. This is all very close to superstar production. This is good!

Mid-COVID Tatum — Let’s pretend this didn’t exist. With me? Ok good.

Post All-star break Tatum — 26.3–6–4 on 49.3/43/87 with 2.0 TOV and 1.2 Stl and .4 Blk. This is good for 60.1% TS and a 4.2 net rating (in a stretch that we are 4–6, that net rating is bordering on absurdly good).

Some takeaways, he’s getting 1 less point, 1 less rebound, but he’s actually been MORE efficient since the all-star break and slightly toned down his turnovers (may be small sample, but also may be playing with Kemba takes him off ball a bit). In the end, this team has been frustrating, but Tatum is our chance to have a homegrown superstar, and COVID is scary as fuck. The most important takeaway from this season is that Tatum took a jump, and since he’s moved past the COVID, that jump has stuck around. Tatum is a budding superstar and we should appreciate how fucking fun he is to watch play basketball.