From the moment he stepped into the league, Jayson Tatum has been one of the NBA’s top young prospects. This year, however, the Duke product has taken the step from promising young player to legitimate star in leading the Boston Celtics in scoring after Kyrie Irving left for the Brooklyn Nets.
Boston is thriving, up to 37-15 after a disappointing second-round exit in last year’s playoffs. As a result, the league’s coaches rewarded Tatum with his first All Star appearance.
They aren’t the only ones taking notice, though. Sekou Smith of NBA.com went a step further and put Tatum in the MVP conversation.
“Tatum is in a different space compared to where he was a year ago, when he and Jaylen Brown struggled with the adjustments they had to make playing alongside Kyrie Irving,” Smith wrote in his MVP Ladder column. “Brown and Tatum have both been spectacular at times with Kemba Walker now holding down Irving’s old spot.”
Entering Sunday, Tatum was averaging a career-high 22.1 points and has increased his scoring output each season in the league. He lit up the New Orleans Pelicans for a career-high 41 points on Jan. 1 and has helped the Celtics to a spot among the league’s best offenses.
He has also made strides defensively, averaging a career-high 1.4 steals per game and becoming well known for his help rotations on the perimeter. Tatum was even averaging career bests with 6.8 rebounds per game and 3.0 assists prior to Sunday’s game against the Oklahoma City Thunder — and then led the Celtics to a 112-111 road win with 26 points and 11 boards.
“The more years you play, the more games you play you feel more comfortable out there,” Tatum told Smith. “You just learn a lot by trial and error. But in the end everybody just has to go out and do their job, whatever it is, and we’ll be fine. It’s really simple for us right now.”
The Celtics took Tatum No. 3 overall in the 2017 NBA Draft after making a trade with the Philadelphia 76ers, and he burst on the scene by scoring 13.9 points per game and shooting 43.4% from 3-point range as a rookie. He helped lead the Celtics to within one game of the 2018 NBA Finals, throwing down a poster dunk on LeBron James in the process before Boston ultimately fell to the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 7.
Coming out of Saint Louis (Mo.) Chaminade, Tatum rated as a 5-star recruit in the 2016 class and ranked No. 4 overall by the 247Sports Composite. He picked Duke over Kentucky, North Carolina and Saint Louis and led the Blue Devils with 16.8 points per game as a freshman in 2016-17. But Duke shockingly fell short of expectations when it lost to No. 7 seed South Carolina in the second round of the 2017 NCAA Tournament.
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