Robb: Jayson Tatum Ready To Hit Shots At NBA Level Right Away
BOSTON (CBS) -- With the NBA summer league, certain aspects like stats and final scores don't necessarily mean a whole lot in the grand scheme of things.
Yet when it comes to how a player looks and what kind of moves he puts on display, much can be gleaned from these summer performances. And in that regard, Jayson Tatum -- the man Danny Ainge hand-picked as the best player in this year's draft -- looks very much like the real deal.
"Tatum's legit," Brian Robb said Monday from Las Vegas, where he's covering the team's summer league performances. "If you just look at where he is -- he's had three double-doubles already. The shot-making is ready to help right now for the Celtics at [the NBA] level. I thought it would take a little bit longer for Tatum to get adjusted to better defenders, the 3-point line going back in the NBA, but his isolation game is ready to go right now. His turnarounds, the one-footed stuff, he's got a strong first step to the hoop."
Robb said that Tatum's ability to create offense when he's the primary key for opponents certainly bodes well for the future, when he'll have some A-level NBA scorers sharing the floor with him.
"I'm really curious to see what he looks like when he's got two or three other capable offensive players around him, because right now teams are already keying on him, they're doubling him in the post. He's obviously the best natural offensive player on the Celtics [summer league team] right now," Robb said. "So you pair him up with a guy like Isaiah Thomas and a guy like Gordon Hayward where teams will put less attention on him. I think he's just a guy who's going to score buckets off the bench all year long."
When speaking with Dan Roche and Michael Hurley (filling in for Toucher & Rich), Robb also discussed the Lonzo/LaVar Ball spectacle, how Ante Zizic has looked, what the bottom of the Celtics' roster will look like, and more. Listen in the audio player above!
