Jayson Tatum Being Called The NBA's Most Overhyped Player Is The Blazing Hot Take I Needed

OK by now you’ve probably seen the Bleacher Report article where writer Grant Hughes ranted the most overhyped players heading into the 2018-19 season. If you want you can read the full article here, but I would like to spend a quick second on the guy who he ranked #1. None other than Jayson Tatum.

I already slapped the franchise label on Jayson Tatum earlier this month, so let’s start by acknowledging that the guy has immense potential. He showed it during last year’s playoff run, when he led the Boston Celtics with 18.5 points per game.

But consider the obstacles ahead of Tatum this season, and you’ll see why we should hold off on crowning him a megastar right away.

Kyrie Irving has never been one to take a backseat, and with him back on the floor, it’ll be much harder for Tatum to build on his postseason takeover. Throw Gordon Hayward into the mix, and there will be even fewer touches for the 20-year-old wing. And that’s to say nothing of Jaylen Brown, who’s a superior defender at the moment and averaged 18 points per game in the playoffs on more efficient shooting than Tatum managed. He’s due for an increased role as well.

Aside from the personnel issues, Tatum is also unlikely to shoot a scorching 52 percent on corner threes again. If that seems unreasonable, consider that Klay Thompson has shot better than 47 percent from the corners only once in his career. He’s never matched Tatum’s 52 percent.

If you believe Tatum is going to be a better shooter than Thompson, you’ve crossed the rubicon between optimism and pure fantasy.

Much of the caution here boils down to skepticism about small samples. Tatum’s hot shooting and relatively brief playoff excellence still count in his favor, but he’s only 20. It’s way too early to start taking the Kobe Bryant parallels seriously, even if some of the evidence is compelling.

Tatum’s going to be great. But let’s not rush to anoint him as a superstar until he deserves it.

OK there’s a lot to digest here. First, I have to say no kidding Celtics fans may be overhyping Tatum a little bit. That’s sort of how we operate and Celtics fans shouldn’t get defensive about that. Deep down we know that as a group we have been known to overhype certain guys (RIPIP James Young). So that doesn’t really bother me. However, once I stopped laughing after reading the explanation, there’s some holes in this logic.

For example, he states that one reason Jayson Tatum is overhyped as a star player because he plays with a shit ton of talent that will all be coming back, and as a result he will not have that same 18.5 point production as he did in the playoffs or same amount of looks as he had in the regular season. Here’s my problem with this logic, and it’s rooted in the facts. Last season Jayson Tatum had a usage rate of just 19.5%. This was good for 7th on the team. If you trim it to guys that actually played, Kyrie/Morris/Jaylen/Terry all had higher usage rates. So yes, Kyrie is coming back, we already know that having Kyrie in the lineup doesn’t take away from Tatum. In the playoffs Tatum’s usage jumped to 23% without Kyrie, but that run isn’t why most Celtics fans think Tatum is going to be a star. The whole season’s body of work is why. And with the addition of Hayward, what do you think is more likely, that they cut Tatum’s usage or someone like Marcus Morris who had a 23% usage rate during the year? Use your brain for me one time.

Next, he does make a good point that Tatum probably won’t shoot 52% again on corner threes, and uses Klay Thompson as his comp. Again, this one area of success is not why people hype Tatum. Even if that drops to like 45%, he’s still going to be the same beast. He mentioned the world “small sample” which is shit I used to hear from Sixers fans when Tatum got off to his hot start. Only problem is 99 total games is not exactly a “small sample”. Maybe, just maybe, Jayson Tatum actually is this good despite being just 20 years old.

Now there is one thing I agree with, and it’s something I’ve tried to put in almost every Celtics blog I’ve written this summer. We all need to take a breath. I am all for waiting to anoint him a superstar until he actually does deserve it, but I don’t think anyone is calling Tatum a superstar RIGHT NOW. Maybe we say he’s on that path, but there are only a handful of true superstars in the league and anyone with a brain knows Tatum isn’t there yet. That in no way means he’s overhyped let alone the most overhyped player in the NBA. To me for him to be the most overhyped player in the league he would have to do something crazy like score 1 point in a playoff game or something along those lines.

If I had to evaluate Tatum realistically, I’d say he is a promising young talent that shows all the signs of becoming one of the best players in the league at some point in his career. His offense proved to be NBA ready, his defense was so much better than any of us ever imagined, and again, he’s a baby. A baby with ice in his veins sure, but a baby nonetheless. It feels to me that people will think he’s overhyped because he only averaged like 14 points a game last year, but remember what his role is on this team. He’s not the #1 option, but has #1 option talent. If you can’t see that you’re just blinded by jealousy.

So yeah, hearing someone call Jayson Tatum the most overhyped player heading into next season was just the type of hot take I needed to recharge my batteries. Something so outrageous I’m convinced there’s no chance the dude who wrote it actually believes it.

Does this look like someone whose hype isn’t warranted? I didn’t think so