Sixers

Boston Folks Are Already Comparing Jayson Tatum to Steph Curry

By Kyle Scott

Published: Jul 11th, 2017 · 11:17 AM EDT

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I’m really getting all throbbed up for the impending Sixers-Celtics rivalry. Boston is easy to hate. So take, for example, Max Lederman of CSN New England (who’s from Philly!), who perhaps in a bit of a tongue-in-cheek way to mock the fan base hysteria compared SUMMER LEAGUE SUPERHERO Jayson Tatum to Steph Curry:

Cool beans.

Here’s the thing: Tatum was considered the most NBA ready prospect coming into the draft. The fact that he’s tearing up the summer league shouldn’t come as a surprise. His iso and mid-range game is his strength, so scoring at this level comes quite naturally to him. To be fair, he has shown more athleticism than I think most people were expecting from him. But, with Tatum it’s always been about his ceiling. Not unlike Jahlil Okafor, who WOWed the league early on until everyone realized he was a better faux street fighter than defender or rebounder, we may already be seeing the very best of Tatum’s offensive potential. Compare that to Markelle Fultz or DeAaron Fox, who display significantly more upside. In fact, even though so much has been made of Tatum in the summer league, Fultz is actually scoring at a much higher clip. Fultz is averaging 0.75 points per minute compared to Tatum’s 0.58. Tatum has also played significantly more minutes – overall and per game – and thus has slightly inflated numbers compared to Fultz. And has he more highlights. So maybe we should just tamp down the hype a little bit.