Coming out of Duke everyone knew Jayson Tatum was good, but not many in the Boston Celtics organization expected him to be this good this early. Last year he averaged 13.9 points and shot 47.5 percent from the floor as a rookie.
Al Horford knew that the Celtics were getting a good one when they drafted Tatum, but he didn't expect him to take off as early as he has.
“I knew Tatum was going to be good, but I didn’t know he was going to be that good and that comfortable in pressure situations,” Horford said via The Boston Herald. “And he kept improving. That was a really good surprise.”
Horford also has been impressed with how hard the rising star worked this offseason and thinks the rest of the NBA needs to be on notice because he has taken major steps this offseason.
“Oh, he’s way better,” Horford said. “Yeah, absolutely. He’s the one guy that . . . we played here all September, pickup games, and he’s just noticeably more comfortable and just playing much better.”
Tatum got a lot of extra playing time with Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward out and he thinks that is only going to make this year's team better.
They are going to have to reincorporate those two guys into the lineup, but the young guys got a lot of valuable playing experience that will help this year.
“Obviously now we have to reincorporate Gordon and Kyrie back to what we’re doing, but this year I feel like everybody knows what to expect. We know what our goals are, and there’s not so much tension. I felt like last year there was probably a little of, like, what’s this going to be? We know what it is now.”
The Eastern Conference is wide open this year and the expectations for the Celtics are high. Will this group be able to live up to them?
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