Question - is Tatum also benefitting just as much from the extra attention paid to the other stars? I think so.
It's not just KP that has that much more room to work, but now there's two extra players out there in KP and Jrue that are much riskier propositions to help off of than Timelord and Smart.
Tatum may be even more unlocked this year with the extra spacing.
This is why I was so excited about the KP pickup.
This team has always been Tatum, Brown, and then a bunch of inconsistent offensive guys. If teams shut one of those guys down, we've never had a go-to #3 option who can make them pay. Porzingis gives us that.
The other issue we've had is that Tatum and Brown have both been lately perimeter oriented players who play a high amount of ISO ball, so this team has had problems at times when they desperately need to make a basket, as they never had somebody they could get it to down low for consistent, easy high percentage shots. Porzingis gives them that as well - give him the ball near the rim or from midrange and he's almost unguardable.
I think his biggest impact is going to be in clutch moments. Being able to lob the ball inside to KP (the way we did with KG in the big 3 era) changes everything. Team are going to need to pay attention to him, and we should be able to get good open looks from one of Tatum/Brown almost at will.
a whole lotta ‘lets trade jb’ after 1/2 of one game, so much over reaction
this team has a lot of potential, everything isn’t going to be perfect in the first few weeks. Jrue and JB are the two who are going to have to make the biggest adjustments. lets give them a chance.
Unfortunately we aren't reacting to half of a game - we're reacting to things we've been seeing from JB for 2-3 years now. And it's not just his play style that has us questioning his mentality, he's made public comments to support it. He openly stated that he does not see himself as a #2 guy in Boston - that makes it clear as day that he think he's in in competition with Tatum for the #1 spot and basically demonstrates that he has not (and probably will not) been willing to accept his spot. And that mentality lines up with what he's shown on the floor.
I really hope that changes over time, but sadly I don't have a lot of confidence in that happening.