"When you look at the Eastern Conference…Joel Embiid, Giannis, Kevin Durant, Kyrie, like that to me is the upper echelon” - Jay Williams believes Jayson Tatum is a tier 2 superstar
NBA and Boston Celtics talisman Jayson Tatum and his rise to a bonafide All-Star caliber player have got folks believing that the forward is good enough to be mentioned in the same category as the likes of Joel Embiid and Kevin Durant.
Speaking on ESPN's morning radio show Keyshawn, JWill and Max, former NBA player Jay Williams spoke about how good Tatum is but he isn't in that category alongside the likes of Durant and Embiid yet. Williams said:
"When you look at the Eastern Conference, we look at the NBA in general, like, tier 1, just in the East, Joel Embiid, Giannis, Kevin Durant, Kyrie, like that to me is the upper echelon. Jayson Tatum is right there. But we havent seen it yet in the postseason. He need the right pieces around him. And I feel like for Jayson Tatum, he is prolific offensively from the scoring perspective but he doesnt make other people around him better yet. Not yet. He's tier 2 right now."
Tatum and the Celtics have had an extremely good year thus far and have posed as legitimate championship contenders as the likes of Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart along with Jayson Tatum have propelled the Boston Celtics forward.
How far can Jayson Tatum and Boston go this season?
With Tatum and Jaylen Brown in their ranks, the Boston Celtics have two players with the potential to be MVP caliber players in the future and their constant theme of not producing winning basketball together finally seems to die down as the Celtics have looked like the real deal this season.
Jayson Tatum has his 21st 30-point game this season.
The Celtics are 15-5 in those games. https://t.co/Hwp8QTtC9Z
It is easy to forget that Tatum is just in his fifth season in the league as the forward is averaging 27 points, eight rebounds, and 4.3 assists while shooting the ball better than 45% from the field, and a little over 33% from beyond the arc. While his shooting numbers are at a career-low (FG%), this may be because he is having to carry a bigger load this season as he is attempting the most field goals of his career.
In many ways, this duo is very similar to Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum's time together in Portland. Extremely talented scorers but can't produce winning performances on the court together. What the Celtics need is a quintessential point guard, someone like Chris Paul who can orchestrate with Tatum and Brown and let them worry about scoring rather than running the offense. With Tatum and Brown, there is very little ball movement and too much focus on isolation play as both thrive in one-on-one situations.
Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum each have 30 points in the same game for the 5th time this season.
That is the most by a pair of teammates in a season in Celtics history, surpassing Larry Bird & Kevin McHale, who had 4 such games in 1986-87 https://t.co/MGydacOdFy
However, given the way they have played defense with the likes of Smart and Robert Williams III and the way the roster has looked since the turn of the year, they hold a legitimate shot of coming out of the East this season and contending for a championship in the NBA Finals.