Tatum's shooting

[ChillyWilly]

I've felt the new Wilson and it's very different texture almost fuzzy. I hate the feel of it doesn't roll off the hand.

[Moranis]

Tatum, Lillard, and Beal were on the Olympic team or at least for part of the Summer (Beal ended up being a late scratch).  Holiday, Middleton, and Booker are struggling.  Doncic is struggling.  Lots of the guys that played in the Olympics are starting slowly. 

[rocknrollforyoursoul]

Tatum, Lillard, and Beal were on the Olympic team or at least for part of the Summer (Beal ended up being a late scratch).  Holiday, Middleton, and Booker are struggling.  Doncic is struggling.  Lots of the guys that played in the Olympics are starting slowly.

Another reason I wish NBA guys wouldn't play in the Olympics.

[gouki88]

Tatum, Lillard, and Beal were on the Olympic team or at least for part of the Summer (Beal ended up being a late scratch).  Holiday, Middleton, and Booker are struggling.  Doncic is struggling.  Lots of the guys that played in the Olympics are starting slowly.

Olympic fatigue + new ball (pretty sure they use Molten balls in FIBA play) could certainly be contributing

[Coach]

The "plan" for Tatum to take the next step is for him to average 8 FT's a game, and to get more easy baskets, at the rim.  To do this, they felt he needed to put on more weight to take the pounding, and get stronger to finish around the rim.

One:  The plan led to the added bulk we see on his frame (and especially his shoulders).  And that is messing with his jumper.  You could tell right from game one that his stroke looked just a bit different.  His elbow was flaring just a bit on his jumper, and didn't look nearly as smooth as he normally was.  This small flaw in his mechanics is throwing his percentage off.  This is why his FT percentage is down as well.  He's fighting his shooting stroke right now.

Two: Back to the plan....  Trying to get the to the FT line, means he's also over driving.  So, he's often driving into crowds.  He then tries to "euro"step through those crowds to force his way to the rim.  All well and good, but one thing the plan didn't take into account is the increased physical nature of this NBA this season.  Those extra bumps and hand checks really bother him because he also has a flawed finishing technique.  He always is jumping off one foot, usually while trying to avoid the contact, instead of jumping off two and going strong.  (Look back at the dunk over Lebron.  He jumped off two feet there and went strong.)  Because he goes up "weak", he get's off balance, and as such, he's back to being a terrible finisher at the rim.  You can tell he's frustrated because of all the complaining. He's yelling at the refs even when he clearly isn't fouled.  I think he's yelling at the "plan" as much as he's yelling at the refs.  Its almost like he's saying to Ime, Stevens and Drew, "Look, I'm doing what you guys are telling me, and I can't get a call!"
 
Three: Loss of confidence.  His jumper being off, physical play, the plan not working, Smart calling him out, fans p---ed off, etc...  All of this is playing in his head, and he's lost some confidence.  This happens to everyone when going through big changes.  Look at Tiger when he was making swing changes.  It happens, and its a hard thing to over come.  Reps and hard work will be the only thing that gets him out of this funk, but he will.  Give it the old 20 game rule, and by December, he will start to look like the old Tatum.  Hopefully averaging 8 FT a game.

[moiso]

The added bulk theory makes sense but he really doesn't look much different from last season.  He's gradually gotten stronger and heavier over his career, but I really don't see the huge increase over this past offseason that others see.  I lean more towards fatigue and just not being in a good groove.

[Redz]

The "plan" for Tatum to take the next step is for him to average 8 FT's a game, and to get more easy baskets, at the rim.  To do this, they felt he needed to put on more weight to take the pounding, and get stronger to finish around the rim.

One:  The plan led to the added bulk we see on his frame (and especially his shoulders).  And that is messing with his jumper.  You could tell right from game one that his stroke looked just a bit different.  His elbow was flaring just a bit on his jumper, and didn't look nearly as smooth as he normally was.  This small flaw in his mechanics is throwing his percentage off.  This is why his FT percentage is down as well.  He's fighting his shooting stroke right now.

Two: Back to the plan....  Trying to get the to the FT line, means he's also over driving.  So, he's often driving into crowds.  He then tries to "euro"step through those crowds to force his way to the rim.  All well and good, but one thing the plan didn't take into account is the increased physical nature of this NBA this season.  Those extra bumps and hand checks really bother him because he also has a flawed finishing technique.  He always is jumping off one foot, usually while trying to avoid the contact, instead of jumping off two and going strong.  (Look back at the dunk over Lebron.  He jumped off two feet there and went strong.)  Because he goes up "weak", he get's off balance, and as such, he's back to being a terrible finisher at the rim.  You can tell he's frustrated because of all the complaining. He's yelling at the refs even when he clearly isn't fouled.  I think he's yelling at the "plan" as much as he's yelling at the refs.  Its almost like he's saying to Ime, Stevens and Drew, "Look, I'm doing what you guys are telling me, and I can't get a call!"
 
Three: Loss of confidence.  His jumper being off, physical play, the plan not working, Smart calling him out, fans p---ed off, etc...  All of this is playing in his head, and he's lost some confidence.  This happens to everyone when going through big changes.  Look at Tiger when he was making swing changes.  It happens, and its a hard thing to over come.  Reps and hard work will be the only thing that gets him out of this funk, but he will.  Give it the old 20 game rule, and by December, he will start to look like the old Tatum.  Hopefully averaging 8 FT a game.

Good stuff.  Part 3 is the most concerning as it supercedes the other 2.  He clearly is thinking too much before his shots.  This is solvable, and he'll get there, but it's difficult to watch.  There was one shot he took last night in the 4th when the 24 second clock was winding down.  I was certain he was going to make the shot because it was a decent look, and he didn't have time to think, just act - he made the 3. 

I was a little curious to see how he would react if he went scoreless and the Celts still won that game against the league's hottest team on the road.  Glad he did get going a bit - especially with Brown down for the count.

[Redz]

I've felt the new Wilson and it's very different texture almost fuzzy. I hate the feel of it doesn't roll off the hand.

Why on earth would they need a new ball for the NBA?  The old ball was perfect.

[Vermont Green]

This was the first game that I was able to watch and closely study.  Teams are doubling him instantly, sometimes even before he gets the ball.  Miami is especially good at this.  Tatum gets the ball, and he waits.  Waits to see what the defense is going to do and of course, what they do is tilt the entire defense towards him, sagging off Smart or whomever.

When Tatum doesn't have the ball, he mostly just stands around.  To me, this is the problem more than anything.  Why not channel Reggie Miller and come off picks, move without the ball.  Then when you get the ball, you are already in motion to either shoot quick or drive.

I think Tatum is going to be fine.  He is just working through the "star" wall (similar to rookie wall or other walls).  He can't keep doing the same things though.  He is making it too easy for the other team to double team.  The rest of the team needs to execute also so it is not all on Tatum.  The rookie coach isn't helping either.

[wdleehi]

I've felt the new Wilson and it's very different texture almost fuzzy. I hate the feel of it doesn't roll off the hand.

Why on earth would they need a new ball for the NBA?  The old ball was perfect.

Money.


They switched companies. 

[wdleehi]

The snowball effect?

Tatum known for slow starts, hasn't had the time to recover from the past two seasons because of the Olympics, using a new ball that is effecting his long shots, less fouls being called leading to Tatum being frustrated and not playing at his best.   



Honestly, he needs something good to happen for him.   It seems every time that happens, his game has an explosion after that.

[footey]

Not worried. He’s Jason Tatum. He’ll be fine. And if we keep winning who cares?

[keevsnick]

So to try to get an idea of how bad its been I did a quick NBA.com search. There re 39 players who have played six or more games, have a usage of 26% or more, and play 28 or more minutes per game. Lets call these "high usage players."

Among the 39 high usage players Tatum is 8th in the NBA in usage (tied with Trae Young). Yet he is 35th is TS% at 46.0. That's crazy! He's literally been one of the single most damaging players in the NBA at high volume this year. Just for comparison the league average TS% is 54.8%, that's down from 57.2% last year. So it does appear offense is just harder to come by this year. We'll see if that holds.

He's not only shooting worse at the rim (45.7%, 73.5% last year, 65.7% career) but he's also getting there less (17.4% this year, 19.7% last year, 24.6% career). His 3 point % is way down (27.1% vs 39.1% career), he's taken a slightly fewer threes (34.8% of his shots vs 36.8% last year) and the ones he's making are more assisted (52.6% vs 46.5%), so he's self creating a little less. He's even struggling on corner threes (27.3% vs 40.4% career). His Free Throw rate is down (23.4% vs 25.7% career), although so is the entire league (22.4% vs 24.7% last year) and he's making less of them (74.5% vs 83.6%).

Non shooting stuff his RBD% is identical, his turnover% is actually moderately down, his usage is up just a tick (31.8% vs 30.8% last year). His assist% is quite a bit down (20.3% vs 16.8%). Although to me eyes the assist% thing has a lot more to do with the team around him being unable to hit shots than anything he's doing. So really its mostly his shooting that's fallen off a cliff, the other stuff doesn't seem dramatically changed. Although his transition defense has at time been horrible.

So what's all this mean? Some of his problems simply reflect a league trend. His TS% is down, so is the league. His FTr is down, so is the league. Three point shooting is also down league wide (36.7% last year, 34.4% this year). So there seems to be some systemic, at leats in the early season, that if effecting players offense. Maybe its guys coming off the Olympics, maybe its a more physical brand of basketball, maybe its simply fans being back in the stands at full capacity effects shooting. Maybe its all three.

But of course his issues are all worse then the league as a whole by a large margin. I think part of that is just small sample, he's gonna bounce back eventually.  He is not a 27% three point shooter. Its been just 9 games, and we've seen Tatum start slowly every year but his rookie one. So in some ways this shouldn't be a surprise, although maybe the scale of the struggle is. He'll be fine. The only question is how long it takes, Tatum always feels like the next game could be the start of a hot streak but if it takes 20 games the C's could find themselves in a hole.

The one nice thing? These last two games he's dialed back the Usage a bit only taking 16 and 13 shots, if you are gonna shoot 25% its better to do so at 15 shots than 25 shots. Also I think he's done less ref complaining the last two games.

[LilRip]

So one thing that’s bothered me this year in particular is that Tatum seems to be looking to pass first and scoring second. Whether out of iso or PnR, this year it’s like he’s expecting for the double to come so he can pass out of it. I’m sure that was a point of emphasis from Ime though.

Another unpleasant wrinkle that’s showing up from the eye test is that Tatum is settling for more mid range jumpers than before. Idk if it’s from playing against/being around KD but he seems to be stepping into mid range jumpers more than last year (similar to his sophomore year actually).

[gift]

Tatum's always been a hot and cold shooter. Right now we're just seeing the frigid cold.