Grading Jayson Tatum, Celtics' Top Stars to Open 2022-23 NBA Season
The Boston Celtics have opened the 2022-23 NBA season without a hitch.
Considering what this club has dealt with already—a coaching change, a season-ending injury to Danilo Gallinari and a delayed debut by Robert Williams III following knee surgery—it's an impressive start for the defending Eastern Conference champs.
While the entire roster has played a part in getting everything going, this league often attaches its most credit (or blame) to a squad's stars. Let's put Boston's best under the microscope, then, to see how the first month(ish) has gone.
Jaylen Brown
Brown booked an All-Star spot two seasons back and basically matched his numbers last time around, so expectations were—as per usual—up for the two-way wing.
He has, more or less, lived up to the hype, though probably not exceeded it.
His place as a top-25-level talent across the league feels cemented, but his hints at leaping toward the top 10 haven't sustained long enough to actually fuel the jump. While his 25.4 points and 6.7 rebounds per game are both career-highs, they don't tower over his previous personal-bests. Not to mention, they're also coupled with his worst field-goal percentage since his rookie year (46.1) and fewest assists in three seasons (2.8).
Again, it's another good start to the season, but fans hoping to see greatness have been left wanting a little more.
Grade: B
Marcus Smart
Smart has long been billed as a brilliant defender with offensive limitations.
The start to this season hasn't changed that scouting report a bit.
He's been stingy enough to snag the No. 2 spot on NBA.com's initial Defensive Player Ladder—no minor feat with Boston ranking 21st in defensive efficiency, per NBA.com—but his shooting rates have gone the wrong direction. His 38.8 field-goal percentage is his lowest in three seasons. His 26.7 three-point percentage is the second-worst of his career.
Where he doesn't get enough credit, though, is with his playmaking, and that's been better than ever. He's not only averaging a career-high 7.0 assists per game, he's doing that while averaging his second-fewest turnovers in seven seasons (1.6).
Grade: B-
Jayson Tatum
The deeper Tatum probes into his NBA career, the higher he climbs up the hoops world.
There didn't seem to be a ton of growth opportunity left, after he started the last two All-Star Games and earned his first All-NBA first-team selection last season. Still, he has found a way to keep adding new elements to his game.
Offensively, he's been unstoppable. His 31.2 points per game are a career-best, as are his 49.8 field-goal percentage and 8.7 free-throw attempts. Defensively, he's done what he can to mask Williams' absence by racking up a personal-best 1.5 blocks per outing.
Switch to advanced metrics, and you'll find some of Tatum's best work (by a mile) of his career: 27.0 player efficiency rating (previous high was 21.8); 65.1 true shooting percentage (was 58.6); 0.223 win shares per 48 minutes (was 0.169), per Basketball-Reference. This is superstar-stuff.
Grade: A+