Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum of the Boston Celtics were named as Eastern Conference All-Star reserves on Tuesday night. The selections were announced just hours before the Celtics’ crushing loss to the Dallas Mavericks – which sees the Celtics drop below .500 on the season.
There’ll be many people disputing the fact that the Celtics have two All-Stars, as they currently hold a rather unsatisfactory record of 15-16, and this is completely fair enough. The Celtics have been far from a good team to start the season. And if you look at the list of snubbed players for this year’s All-Star game, there are plenty of other deserving stars. However, these things don’t change the fact that both Brown and Tatum are having huge personal years. If it wasn’t for these two, we’d be talking about the Celtics in a tanking race. We’re not even halfway through the year yet, so we should still expect a side with these two to make a run in the playoffs. They’re both playing All-Star level basketball, and they were both rightly awarded for this last night.
Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown are deserving All-Stars for the Boston Celtics
Jaylen Brown, who gets his first All-Star appearance this year, was the first to quiet down the talk surrounding his inclusion. Following last night’s crushing defeat to Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks, Brown said that he doesn’t “feel very much like an All-Star” because of the Celtics having a losing record as a team. If you’re a Celtics fan, this is going to make you feel like he’s even more deserving of his inclusion. At just 23 years old, Brown recognizes the importance of winning over anything else and is not content with how things are going for Boston right now.
Out of Brown and Tatum, if just one was going to be selected you’re thinking it would have had to be Brown. In his fifth season in the league, Brown has transcended into one of the league’s premier scoring players and continues to near that elite level on the defensive end of the floor. Through Tuesday, Brown is averaging 25.7 points, 5.6 rebounds, and 3.9 assists per game on the season – highs in points and assists. He’s taken his game to a completely new level, becoming not just an elite scorer (50.1 field goal percentage, 40.2 3-point percentage), but an important creative piece for this team with Gordon Hayward leaving and Kemba Walker and Marcus Smart suffering injury problems early on.
Whilst there are tons of other stars performing at a high level, I think it’s fair that Tatum gets the nod as well as his teammate. The Miami Heat’s Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo both miss out during big starts to the season for the both of them. But, the Heat themselves are 14-17, so it’s a similar predicament to the Boston Celtics. Perhaps the East’s biggest snub comes in the form of Domantas Sabonis from Indiana. The Pacers currently sit fourth in the East standings, and this is largely due to Sabonis’ performance through this first part of the season. Tatum though is showing improvement upon improvement in his fourth season in the league.
Boston’s star man is just about beating out Brown in scoring with 26.1 points per game. He’s adding 7.1 rebounds and 4.6 per game which are both career highs. Like Brown, he’s becoming a good passer of the basketball, creating plenty of opportunities for his teammates when drawing attention from the opposition’s defenders. He’s continuing his growth, again like Brown, into one of the league’s best wing defenders. On the year thus far, Tatum is allowing a 26.9 percentage on 3-pointers attempted by his assignment.
In a year where an All-Star game seems far from necessary, there remain more players that deserve to be selected than ever before. Right now, records shouldn’t and don’t mean too much when selecting these teams. An All-Star game in a shortened season, where the most games a team has played is 33, seems like there’ll always be deserving players left out when it comes to selection.
It’s hard to argue with the choices that have been made. For Boston Celtics fans, at least there’s a couple of things to be happy about at the moment. Brown and Tatum is an elite-level duo and they’re getting the recognition that they deserve.