The historical standing of Jayson Tatum’s under-25 resume

Jayson Tatum turned 25 years previous yesterday, and that presents a pure milestone to take inventory of his profession so far. Celtics play-by-play man Sean Grande lately made the declare that Tatum has constructed among the best NBA resumes of all time by way of his accomplishments and manufacturing previous to turning 25 years previous, and I wholeheartedly agree with him.

Tatum has scored the seventh most common season factors in historical past underneath the age of 25.

The gamers forward of him are LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony, Kobe Bryant, Tracy McGrady, and Devin Booker. You’ll have heard of them.

In the meantime, Tatum has scored the third most playoff factors in historical past underneath the age of 25.

The one two gamers who’ve scored extra playoff factors by their twenty fifth birthday are Kobe Bryant and LeBron James, each of whom had an additional season to function as they went straight from highschool to the professionals whereas Tatum made a pitstop at Duke. To be honest, different nice gamers like Larry Chicken and Tim Duncan could be on these lists as properly if that they had spent much less time in school and entered the NBA of their teenagers.

One of many causes Tatum has scored so many playoff factors is as a result of he has performed in 74 playoff video games, the 4th highest whole of all time underneath the age of 25. He’s behind solely Kobe Bryant (97 video games), Tony Parker (90), and Kawhi Leonard (75).

To play in a whole lot of playoff video games, you’ll want to win a whole lot of playoff video games. Tatum’s profession playoff report stands at 41-33. A championship title, in fact, has eluded him up to now, however he has superior to the Finals as soon as and the Convention Finals on two different events.

Kobe, Parker, and Kawhi all had the benefit of taking part in alongside a generational massive man (Shaq and Duncan respectively) throughout their under-25 title seasons. In the meantime, Tatum has been the main man on just about all of his playoff runs, averaging essentially the most factors per recreation on the workforce throughout each playoffs of his profession aside from his 2nd season.

After all, each Tatum and Celtics followers know that he finally must validate his spectacular resume with a title (or titles) to really cement his rising legacy as one of many recreation’s nice gamers. When requested to call one of the best gamers within the recreation, Tatum has persistently pointed to previous champs like LeBron, Durant, and Giannis as having reached a degree he has not but attained.

There is no such thing as a doubt that Tatum is constructing a resume that locations him within the firm of NBA royalty. In the end, his potential to punch by on the highest ranges for championship titles (in addition to preserve well being and longevity) will decide whether or not or not he’s remembered as a singular expertise and fabulous scorer like a Carmelo or T-Mac or whether or not he can actually shoulder his approach into the dialog with “one-name” giants of the sport like LeBron, Durant, and Kobe.

As we wait to see how his profession performs out over the subsequent decade-plus (hopefully in Celtics inexperienced the whole time), let’s respect that the Celtics have drafted and developed one of many nice skills within the recreation’s historical past.