Jayson Tatum has no limit

Leaving defeated in an NBA Finals can leave a scar.

Even in a paradoxical way, forcing the loser to undergo the phases of mourning, despite the fact that the emptiness caused by that defeat is nourished more by the previous expectation of reaching it than by the fact of having lost something already conquered.

That defeat at the gates of heaven generates, deep down, a particular and profound sense of loss.

However, for Jayson Tatum the five stages of that duel (denial, anger, negotiation, depression and acceptance) seemed to be brief, perhaps convinced that the crucial thing was right after.

His environment revealed, at the beginning of the new season, that something in him had changed during the past summer.

And not only on a physical level, an aspect in which he himself had confessed that, after a prolonged hectic period of competition, he felt better prepared than ever.

Their degree of concentration and commitment to detail seemed different.

And therein lay the key for a player who, starting the new campaign under the earthquake generated in the Celtics with the sudden departure of Ime Udoka from the bench, assumed that to achieve the long-awaited title his leadership had to take a step forward.

Inside and outside the box.

For Tatum, 24, the media demand came very soon.

To a large extent because he provoked it: at just 20 years old, in what was his debut in the final phase, he gave performances to remember, despising hierarchies with LeBron James himself, then commander of some Cavaliers who reached four consecutive NBA Finals ( all of them against the Warriors).

More information

Popovich, the infinite coach of the NBA, makes history again

Its growth has therefore been subjected to the most rigorous judgment practically since it landed in the professional universe.

It is that, the one that produces the heat of the permanent focus, the indirect condemnation that every star suffers.

However, despite the fact that his progression has been solid and his recent performance (chosen in the 'NBA Best Quintet' during the regular season and later awarded as MVP of the Eastern Conference Finals) has consolidated him in the first echelon of the elite, what has been seen in just a month of the new course has a different aroma.

Tatum is another player.

And a much better one.

Frustrated by his poor care of the ball during the last

(he became the first player to accumulate a hundred turnovers in the playoffs), he invested a huge number of summer hours studying other forwards with great offensive use to serve as techniques. to be more careful without losing effectiveness.

Kevin Durant's example, especially when he faces the rim, made him add a few to his bag.

It didn't even stop there.

A call to Drew Hanlen, one of the world's most respected individual technique personal trainers, sought to delve into detail.

In his 'floater', the elevation shot two or three meters from the ring that saves defenders by limiting physical contact in the area (a resource that, for example, in his day Juan Carlos Navarro turned into art), Tatum discovered a lack.

With Hanlen by his side, and through endless mechanization sessions, he has tried to turn it into a fortress.

The result, seen these days, is a simply superior Tatum.

One increasingly intelligent in the how and more punctual in the when.

The number of his free throws (almost 9 per game, an increase of close to 40% compared to the previous season) reveals his greater aggressiveness once he attacks the area from the dribble.

Jayson Tatum followed up his 37-points on Wednesday with another 30-piece!

#BleedGreen

☘ @jaytatum0: 30 PTS, 8 REB, 4 AST pic.twitter.com/zCOKFCEjVL

— NBA (@NBA) November 26, 2022

And his fabulous technical range is projected, moreover, following the laws of the game's forefront: minimizing the least effective shots (between five and seven meters) in favor of increasing the most productive ones (triples).

Thus, the Celtics forward touches career lows in the first (below 8% of his total shots from the field) and maximums in the second (above 45% of the total).

In the end, it combines the gimmicky with the effective.

Adding to his progress in creating chances for his teammates, with increasingly lucid decision-making, and his non-negotiable defensive deployment, which makes him a player with enormous impact on both sides of the court, the current version of Tatum is reaching the top and launches him -with the Celtics leading the NBA- towards the race for the MVP of the season, an award that has not fallen to a Celtics player since Larry Bird received it -for the third consecutive time- in 1986.

It is, basically, the penultimate step of a profile that does not stop taking them.

Of the new frontier reached by a man who seems to have made the digestion of a defeat the best guarantee for him to seize glory.

It is in it.

You can follow EL PAÍS Deportes on

Subscribe to continue reading

Read without limits

Keep reading

I'm already a subscriber