Boston Celtics: 2017-18 player grades for Jayson Tatum

Weaknesses

As great as Tatum was this past season, it doesn’t mean there weren’t frustrating points.

As mentioned earlier, Tatum has shown great promise already as a secondary (or tertiary, depending on the personnel on the floor) playmaker. His handle is smooth, and he uses it often to create separation, like on this play when guarded by First Team All-Defense guard Jrue Holiday. Pay attention to the slow motion replay.

The slow-mo shows how high of a release point Tatum shoots the ball from. This is highlighted only because it often happened that if Tatum hit a 3-point shot off the dribble, he’d rely too much on his handle to try to get separation, when he had a lane to drive and/or an open teammate. That can be cleaned up easily, but it was on display in the postseason.

Another weakness of Tatum’s is his dribbling… in place. At this point it may seem like nitpicking, but Tatum had a frustrating tendency to put on an array of dribble moves, only to remain stationary and not pass or even attempt to drive. Again, this can be coached out of him, but the Celtics’ offense became stagnant at times because of Tatum’s lack of decisiveness.