Tatum Looks Impressive Despite Early Rust

All right, uh, let's talk about basketball topics here.

And let's start with Jayson Tatum.

Back in the Celtics lineup.

We're recording this on Tuesday afternoon, so, uh, most people will be listening after the Celtics play the San Antonio Spurs, but it has been a much better, better than expected start for Jayson Tatum.

The shooting numbers are a little bit low.

He's high 30s from the floor.

He's high 20s from three-point range.

A lot of that is, hey, start the game 0 for 6 against, um, Uh, against Dallas on Friday, picked it up after that, and he has just been, by all accounts, so much better than people believed he would be, uh, coming back from this type of injury.

All the scouts that I've talked to, all the coaches that I've talked to, look, they're not sitting there saying like, he's back.

Like he's the same Jayson Tatum.

There still is some, Explosion things he has to get better at.

You saw him when he missed the dunk in in Dallas, the alley oop from, but that was what I was about to say is that of all possible things to fall short on in this comeback so far, and by the way, it's a tiny sample size that we have, like that's the thing you don't worry about that will come back.

He will not miss an open dunk, right?

That's not gonna happen in an NBA Final.

That was tough, but it's not gonna happen.

Why is he had, he had not made a shot up until that point, eyes wide open.

Straight to the lane, boom, muffed it.

But we're literally talking about if they can progress, we're talking about 3 months from now.

Am I confident that in 3 months, Jayson Tatum can get a shot back and get an open dunk and, and do all those things?

Yeah, but it's all the other things that are sometimes really hard to come back with.

First of all, the mental aspect, player after player who comes back from a long injury says that's the hardest part.

He seemed fine.

He did not seem to be seeing ghosts.

He did not seem to be sort of overprotective, right, of his knee.

He was completely fine.

And his timing was there, and his timing with his teammates was there.

And that is a testament to him.

It's a testament to Joe Missoula's system.

I, I just, I thought that all the things that I was looking for of, oh, is this going to be a problem, he passed every single one, and the shooting comes back.

That's just time and reps.

Yeah, he.

He probably looked like 80% of the old Jayson Tatum, and that is a remarkable accomplishment.

This is the most difficult injury to come back from in sports.

Like an Achilles tear is still the kind of injury that terrifies teams, and you hear guys that have come back from it in the past, whether it's Kobe Bryant or Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson.

Most recently, say how long it took them to get fully comfortable.

In the case of Kevin Durant, he sat a whole season, entire season.

He was like 17 months.

That's on the really, really long end of the recovery time.

And the guys that do come back early, Kobe, who only played like 5 or 6 games, I think, before he went down with that knee injury, Wesley Matthews is another example.

These guys, they weren't close to being what they used to be.

Now, with Tatum.

He benefited from some circumstances, I think.

I think having it happen in New York City was the best thing that could have happened to him.

Having, because he was right there where he was gonna get the surgery.

Like he was sitting there in New York.

He goes to the hospital the next morning.

Doctor Martin O'Malley is standing there going, I'll do it right now.

Like, you want to do it right now?

So, I mean, ordinarily there's like 3 days, 5 days, a week before then.

So like everything happened, and I don't know if, I'm not a medical expert.

I don't know if you do it faster, it accelerates the healing.

I don't know, but it sure seems.

Like every step of the way, he was more advanced than he should have been or more advanced than other, other players were.

Well, I looked this up, that, that right now, you know, there's different medicine progress progresses.

There's different ways to recover from an Achilles.

The way that they are doing the rehab and everything now has shortened the timeline a little bit.

So they say 9 to 12 months.

So 10 months is not like, oh my God, he came back, you know, earlier than any human, but it is early on the early end of that spectrum.

And I think that this really speaks to Jayson Tatum's toughness.

We talk about how he loved Kobe, and, you know, emulated him and the shot making and all this stuff, but Kobe's toughness is obviously pretty legendary.

And Tatum, this was a tough thing to do.

And every day to wake up and be as motivated as you have to be to come back like this is something that player after player says is so hard.

And, you know, Jayson Tatum, I think, has been a hard superstar for fans to get.

To know .

Does that make sense?

Like, I think that, I think that people know that he loves his kid.

I think people know that he's a great basketball player.

I, I don't think his personality has come through to the public as much as some of these other guys.

You know who Anthony Edwards is as a person.

You know who LeBron James is as a person.

Tatum has just been a little bit more mysterious for fans because he's a little more introverted.

And I think if you were looking for something to tag Jayson Tatum with, like a characteristic, I think toughness has to be there.

Because this was a toughness thing and he was exceptional and it's tough to to go out and do it every night now when you're, you know, still getting back to it.

Yeah, um.

He's been a workhorse for the Celtics during his playing career.

Up until this season, I think it's around 90% of the games he's played in.

Um, I think he was like 80-something as a rookie, the, those abbreviated years he was playing in every game .

He had like a 5-game absence, I think during the COVID year, but that was it.

He has been.

An Ironman for this team, and I guess we should have read into that, said, hey, he's, he's gonna be back.

Like when he says, I'm circling a day in the calendar, he means it.

Like I didn't, I remember sitting down with him in New York City in September, October, right after when he started to do some media tours, uh, before training camp opened, and he said that to me.

He said, I'm gonna be back.

I'm, I'm circling that day in the calendar.

I'm gonna do it.

I didn't believe him, not for one second.

And I didn't, look, I, I, I think in fairness, the fact the Celtics are competitive works, worked for him here.

Because if they were, if the record was reversed, no chance that Jason Tatum is back.

But because they're competitive , it opened up the door for him to come back, and he kicked that damn door in.

Yeah, and I think the feeling was Jason Tatum was always going to try to come back.

Would the Celtics let him, kind of, you know, how risky would it be?

Would they let him possibly suffer, you know, Clay had back to back knee injuries.

Well, different situation, obviously, but still, um, and again, I think he blew the doors off on the medical staff's expectations in addition to his own expectations.

They are competitive.

And again, I think the system and the familiarity helps him a lot.

Like, I know that a lot of the bench guys he's playing with, he hasn't played with quite so often, but him and Jalen are always going to have shorthand.

Pritchard, and I just think that Joe Maz does a sort of, you know, kind of, you know what you're getting when you step into that lineup and everybody else knows.

So they know how to play with Tatum even if they haven't played a lot of minutes with Jason Tatum, and I think that's super helpful too.

And you know, look, when he gets his shot back.

Banging, banging threes from the corner is gonna be a lot, you know, and he makes the game easier for everybody.

I mean, it bumps everybody down the depth chart.

Their depth was an issue.

I think Joe Maz, Joe Maz, why did I call him that?

Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe Missoula.

I think Joe Missoula has done a remarkable job of squeezing production out of unlikely sources like, oh, here comes Jordan Walsh in for.

Extended stints and Baylor Shireman is showing stuff in year two that you didn't see in year one.

And by the way, we signed Ron Harper Jr.

We're going to put him into the starting lineup for a couple of games.

Like he's just been able to squeeze stuff out of these guys.

You get Tatum back, you're not as reliant on every one of those players.

Now, I did notice that before Friday's game, the Celtics were 900, uh, to win the championship, 900.

After Friday's game, a stat of being 900, I'm like, what could they possibly be 900 after Friday's game that jumped up to 550.

So the oddsmakers love Tatum's return.

According to DraftKings, only Oklahoma City has better odds of winning a championship.

Now, the caveat is that's not saying Boston's better than Denver, San Antonio.

It just means Denver and San Antonio have to get through Oklahoma City if they want to get to, to the finals.

But the Celtics sitting there.

With the 2nd best odds to win a championship, do you think that's fair?

Do you think they are now the favorite to win the East and outside of Oklahoma City to have the best chance to win a championship?

I put them at 3rd.

Maybe.

I really believe in the Spurs team.

I don't know for sure.

They're gonna get past Oklahoma City if they play them, or, you know, whatever, but if they ended up in the finals against Boston, I think Boston would win, but I, I just, I think it would be a 6 and 7 game finals, um, but.

Other than that, in Oklahoma City, I don't see it.

And if you're the Knicks, or, you know, any of these teams, Pistons, any of these teams that thought, this is our year, the East is wide open, you know, when we first started talking about could Tatum really come back, I said, what if the East is wide open for the Celtics?

And that is exactly what happened.

I mean, it's been incredible.

I think it's, it's a testament to everybody in that organization.

That this was able to happen.

And just think about the space he creates on the floor for other players.

It's not just that he bumps everyone down, you know, the roster.

And by the way, for as good as anybody has played, Jayson Tatum at 80% is better than any of them.

Um, but that except Jalen Brown, obviously, but, um, You know, I, I think it's that when he's on the court, you, you got to guard him, you got to consider him, and, you know, his passing is, is great, you know, all the things, little things that he does, and he's always been fantastic at that, doing the little things people don't notice on the court.

He's delivering on all that, and it's just going to multiply the effectiveness of everybody else out there, even if he misses a wide open dunk.

And the Celtics are surging at a time when their peers are scuffling.

Uh, I was at the Knicks last couple of games.

Not great, not great, uh.

The defense failed them against the Lakers.

The offense stalled, especially early against the Clippers.

Uh, the Knicks remain, as we talked about last week, wildly unpredictable.

You don't know what you're gonna get.

Detroit right now, uh, again, we're recording this before they play the Nets on Tuesday, but they're in the middle of a 4-game skid, including a loss to the Nets during that , that 4 games.

Their shooting remains a potential issue for them moving forward.

Cleveland, what is James Harden's status going to be when, you know, he comes, they, they get back into the mix.

So I'm just, I'm wondering if this is an opportunity now for the Celtics.

With all the teams, with the stuff that's going on around them right now, with the stuff that's happening with this team, is this an opportunity for them?

To just seize the moment here.

Like they've got these two games coming up, San Antonio, Oklahoma City.

Those are going to be really tough games for the Celtics to win.

But in the Eastern Conference, I do not see a team that scares me if I'm Boston.

I do not see a team that would be considered a real threat.

No.

And you know, it's interesting.

I heard, uh, Kevin O'Connor say, if you're Al Horford, how bad do you feel about the decision to skip to the Warriors instead of playing on this Boston team.

But they are a different team than they were in the postseason last year, and you and I have both said it.

They were losing to the Knicks even if Jayson Tatum, yeah, they were gonna be down 3-1 regardless, so.

They have to have a better showing than that this year for us to be like, oh, nobody scares me in the east.

But I kind of think in some ways they shed some of the things that was tough for them last season, and they're a better team.

I mean, just the uncertainty of Christa Sporzingis not having that hang over their heads anymore.

The Vusovich injury, I, I'm a little concerned about.

He's gonna be out at least till around the end of the regular season.

They need him in the playoffs.

Like they need a big body out there in the playoffs.

So I mean they, they still.

Look, they're still flawed, you know.

Can you count on Kada in the postseason?

We don't know yet.

Can you count on Shireman in the postseason?

We don't know yet.

Jordan Walsh, we don't know yet.

Hugo Gonzalez, who, by the way, is gonna be a really good player.

Like he's gonna be a really good player, but can you count him now in the postseason?

I don't know the answer to that.

So there's still definitely some questions there, but right now I put the Celtics as the favorite to win the East.

Oh yeah, I think, I think so too.

And that doesn't mean that.

Another team can't, but they are the favorites to me.

And what you just said though is why I would put the Spurs up there with the Thunder as possible.

Yeah, I mean, it's look, it's whoever comes out of the West is going to be favored over whoever comes out of the, but I just mean that, you know, the positions that Boston is still, we have to see it, right, have to be proven.

I mean front, that's Victor Wepanyama's bread and butter.

So a great equalizer, Victor Wepanyama.