Tatum Stat that needs massive improvement

[footey]

He hasn’t shown up tonight.

There’s a stat for you.

21 points. 7 rebounds. 5 assists. 8/17. 4/7 from three.

I dunno man. With 8 mins to go, that's not bad?

Empty

Good point. Really won me over with that comeback :]

lol

You’ll learn.

Actually he’s picked it up. Was expecting more from him tonight.

[Kiorrik]

By my count

Define your count?

My count is any game with under 42% shooting percentage. Not eFG% straight up shooting %.

 

Why would you use FG%?  If Tatum shoots 40% from 3PT he’s doing his job.

There's plenty counter stats that work. Even without advanced.

In those he had 2 30+ games, 5 25+ games and 10 20+ games.

5 games with over 7 assists (meaning 14+ points each)

8 games with 9+ rebounds.

11 games with 2 or fewer turnovers.

Plenty of games where he was way more impactful than ONE single stat would show.

[Kiorrik]

He hasn’t shown up tonight.

There’s a stat for you.

21 points. 7 rebounds. 5 assists. 8/17. 4/7 from three.

I dunno man. With 8 mins to go, that's not bad?

Empty

Good point. Really won me over with that comeback :]

lol

You’ll learn.

Actually he’s picked it up. Was expecting more from him tonight.

Condescension begets condescension I suppose. Fair enough.

Yeah look, someone's at 20ish points, 7 rebounds and 5 assists through 3 quarters, including 4/7 from 3 - I don't know how you call that a no-show already.

Looks like you've already learned that though.

[bcgenuis]

I do love the presentation of an opinion as a stat. Usually it's a fact, a stat is a new route to go down. Nice

Bad shooting is a stat. Not an opinion.  8 for 22 is not an opinion. Neither is 7/20 and 3/14 or back to back 4/18 and 4/20.

Is 5/16 an opinion? What about 6/16? 7/19 now there's an opinion. Want a better opinion back to back 3/17's following the previous week's 9/23. And there are unfortunately plenty more opinions.

Let's face it. Tatum is very good, borderline great. But he is not there yet. Not consistent on a night after night basis.  Also, on the night's that he doesnt have it (which happens to all greats) he does NOT put up better stats in other areas (assists, rebounds or defense) or even get to the line at a higher rate.

He is still young and needs to improve by being a more consistent main scorer. That was my point!

If your teams #1 scorer is inconsistent, as the record (teams and his stats) show. The teams record will reflect that.

[nickagneta]

Brown's hurt and Kemba is playing great......so I guess that makes Tatum the current whipping boy.

[keevsnick]

Brown's hurt and Kemba is playing great......so I guess that makes Tatum the current whipping boy.

There must be one. Celtic law dictates it.

[Ogaju]

Brown's hurt and Kemba is playing great......so I guess that makes Tatum the current whipping boy.

maybe it means Brown and Walker were not good together?

[Roy H.]

Brown's hurt and Kemba is playing great......so I guess that makes Tatum the current whipping boy.

maybe it means Brown and Walker were not good together?

Except that Kemba has played well with JB?

[gouki88]

I do love the presentation of an opinion as a stat. Usually it's a fact, a stat is a new route to go down. Nice

Bad shooting is a stat. Not an opinion.  8 for 22 is not an opinion. Neither is 7/20 and 3/14 or back to back 4/18 and 4/20.

Is 5/16 an opinion? What about 6/16? 7/19 now there's an opinion. Want a better opinion back to back 3/17's following the previous week's 9/23. And there are unfortunately plenty more opinions.

Let's face it. Tatum is very good, borderline great. But he is not there yet. Not consistent on a night after night basis.  Also, on the night's that he doesnt have it (which happens to all greats) he does NOT put up better stats in other areas (assists, rebounds or defense) or even get to the line at a higher rate.

He is still young and needs to improve by being a more consistent main scorer. That was my point!

If your teams #1 scorer is inconsistent, as the record (teams and his stats) show. The teams record will reflect that.

Listing one-off field goal shooting occurrences is a terrible metric for efficiency. EFG% and TS% are both much more valuable because they value points and free throws.

Of small forwards who qualify for ESPN's stats (53 players) Tatum is 2 in rebounds per game and 6 in assists per game. He is also =5 in steals and 6 in free throw attempts. So for most non-scoring stats he's around top-5 in his position, while being the highest scoring small forward per game in the NBA.

I'm very confused about your point. He's not any more inconsistent than any other star who isn't MVP calibre, and he's reliably good at things other than scoring.

[Muzzy66]

You know the funniest part of all this?

I can remember back when the Celtics were in the heart of their rebuild, lets say 6 years ago in the 2016 season.

Our best player was Isaiah Thomas - he was one of the worst defensive guards in the NBA but we were excited because he was averaging 22.2 PPG - and we really hadn't seen anyone with that type of talent in green since the Big 3 era.  Our next three guys were AB (15.2 PPG), Crowder (14.2 PPG) and Evan Turner (10.5 PPG).

Nobody on the team looked like they had long term star potential really, nobody had any clue where the team would go...there was no indication of anything special on the horizon.   I remember guys here throwing out all these draft and trade ideas constantly because the thought of bringing in almost any young guy with the potential to one day average 20 PPG was practically a wet dream.  If today's Evan Fournier was on that roster, he may well be the best and most promising player on it. 


If one of us came out 4 years ago on this forum and predicted that we would have in 2021 we'd have:
- Jayson Tatum averaging 26 PPG
- Jaylen Brown averaging almost 25 PPG
- Kemba Walker putting up 19 PPG as out THIRD scoring option

I don't think there is a single person on this Forum who would have entertained the idea. We'd all have laughed hysterically at them and told them to take off their "green glasses".  Because Tatum and Brown (at 23 and 24 years old) have already exceeded expected by such a wide margin that it would have been completely unfathomable. 

And yet still I hear constant complaints from Celtics fans that their 23 year old 26 point, 7 rebound, 4 assist guy is just so dang disappointing. 

I think back to how bleak things felt for this team even 3 or 4 years ago, and then I look at what Brown, Tatum (and even Kemba) are doing out there it makes me grin like a lunatic. I'm well and truly impressed by just how "glass half empty" Celtics fans can be. 

[Muzzy66]

I do love the presentation of an opinion as a stat. Usually it's a fact, a stat is a new route to go down. Nice

Bad shooting is a stat. Not an opinion.  8 for 22 is not an opinion. Neither is 7/20 and 3/14 or back to back 4/18 and 4/20.

Is 5/16 an opinion? What about 6/16? 7/19 now there's an opinion. Want a better opinion back to back 3/17's following the previous week's 9/23. And there are unfortunately plenty more opinions.

Let's face it. Tatum is very good, borderline great. But he is not there yet. Not consistent on a night after night basis.  Also, on the night's that he doesnt have it (which happens to all greats) he does NOT put up better stats in other areas (assists, rebounds or defense) or even get to the line at a higher rate.

He is still young and needs to improve by being a more consistent main scorer. That was my point!

If your teams #1 scorer is inconsistent, as the record (teams and his stats) show. The teams record will reflect that.

Listing one-off field goal shooting occurrences is a terrible metric for efficiency. EFG% and TS% are both much more valuable because they value points and free throws.

Of small forwards who qualify for ESPN's stats (53 players) Tatum is 2 in rebounds per game and 6 in assists per game. He is also =5 in steals and 6 in free throw attempts. So for most non-scoring stats he's around top-5 in his position, while being the highest scoring small forward per game in the NBA.

I'm very confused about your point. He's not any more inconsistent than any other star who isn't MVP calibre, and he's reliably good at things other than scoring.

Thank you!

It's almost like people forget the days when guys like Hayward, Kyrie, Isaiah and even Pierce / Ray would have bad shooting nights.  It happens!  It happens even to guys like Lebron, Steph Curry and James Harden.

- James harden has played 42 Games this season, and shot 42% or worse in 12 of them (29%)
- Steph has played 61 games this season and shot 42% or less in 15 of them (25%)
- Lebron has played 43 Games this season and shot 42% or less in 9 of them (21%)
- Kyrie has played 51 games this season and shot 42% or less in 11 of them (22%)

Average that out and those guys as a whole shot <42% in 24% of their - one in four games basically.  And every guy on that list has played at least 10 years in the league, is pretty much a surefire hall of famer, and has either been an MVP or a top 2 player on a championship team.   

Tatum has played 61 games this season and shot 42% or less in 21 of them (34%). Half of those cases were from a long stretch (from 11th Feb to 2nd March) Tatum shot <42% in 11 of 13 games because he was struggling with the effects of COVID - i dont think it's reasonable to hold that against him.

Now factor in that Tatum is 23 years old and only playing in his 4th NBA season, and well...I think he's doing quite nicely to be honest.

[jambr380]

Saying Tatum has been somewhat disappointing and saying he sucks are two totally different things. The Celtics are now going to have to fight for their playoff lives with a play-in, and part of that blame lies on our best player. That may sound unfair, but that's just how it works. You see teams like NYK and ATL fighting over every win and you see our [more talented] team come out lazy seemingly every game.

Statistically Tatum has been great this season, although his percentages are a bit lower than his peers. It does seem like he gets the opportunity to pad his stats at times, though. When we get down big, the other team eventually has a mini-let down allowing Tatum to exert his will on the game, only to come up short time and time again. Even last night, the game was essentially over going into the 4th, yet Tatum put up 16 meaningless points in that period on easy lay-ups, FTs, wide-open 3s.

It just doesn't seem like his impact on the game has been what we need from our best player...at least at the times we need it. I love Tatum - think he still has top 5 potential - but he is still very young and he needs to leave that laid back attitude at home. He needs to play with more purpose from the jump, not just when we get down big.

[Vermont Green]

I suppose there is a way to numerically quantify game to game shooting consistency but with number the of 3s taken these days, you can expect fluctuation.  Tatum averages about 20.5 shot attempts per game with 46% made (9.5 made on average).  So is 8-20 (40%) an OK game but 7-20 (35%) a bad game?  One make or miss (probably a 3) decides it all (my point is that this is silly)?

I don't know what "average inconsistency" for a top player should be but I am sure that there is a statistical standard deviation or something that could be applied.  My guess is that statistically, Tatum would be fine in this regard.  And as others have said, this is only considering shooting, not even scoring or taking into account assists or other important contributions.

There are areas where Tatum needs to improve.  Two obvious ones for me are getting to the line more and responding to double teams better.  FTAs are easy to track and getting to the line tends to level out the scoring impact from expected fluctuations in game to game FG%.  Tracking double teamed results is harder.  Maybe there is a stat for assists when double team % or something like that.

[gift]

Brown's hurt and Kemba is playing great......so I guess that makes Tatum the current whipping boy.

The negativity sucks.

[Moranis]

I do love the presentation of an opinion as a stat. Usually it's a fact, a stat is a new route to go down. Nice

Bad shooting is a stat. Not an opinion.  8 for 22 is not an opinion. Neither is 7/20 and 3/14 or back to back 4/18 and 4/20.

Is 5/16 an opinion? What about 6/16? 7/19 now there's an opinion. Want a better opinion back to back 3/17's following the previous week's 9/23. And there are unfortunately plenty more opinions.

Let's face it. Tatum is very good, borderline great. But he is not there yet. Not consistent on a night after night basis.  Also, on the night's that he doesnt have it (which happens to all greats) he does NOT put up better stats in other areas (assists, rebounds or defense) or even get to the line at a higher rate.

He is still young and needs to improve by being a more consistent main scorer. That was my point!

If your teams #1 scorer is inconsistent, as the record (teams and his stats) show. The teams record will reflect that.

Curry has had 19 games under 42% this year.  8 of Harden's 34 games with the Nets he has been under 42% and he has 4 more under 43%.  10 of Embiid's 42 games are under 42%.  26 of Lillard's 64 games under 42%. 

It is a ridiculous use of the stat because it provides no context and inappropriately counts 3 point FG's with 2 point FG's.