A Closer Look At What The Hell Is Going On With Jayson Tatum's Sudden Inability To Shoot The Basketball

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If you look around the league right now, you'll see a ton of surprising results when it comes to players struggling to shoot the ball. Is it the new ball? The new rules? Did guys put on too much muscle? Who the hell knows. There are guys like Dame who are shooting 39/30%, De'Aaron Fox is at 42/25%, AD is at 51/20%, Paul George 43/33%, Embiid is at 42% from the floor, Beal at 43/27%, Harden at 40/36%., SGA at 40/31%, Randle 41/33%, the list goes on and on. All of these dudes didn't suddenly forget how to shoot, so something's up.

For the sake of my life and my overall mental health, I truly only care about one player who has been worse than nearly all of these struggling stars. Jayson Tatum. The player who is 2nd in the NBA in FGA only trailing Paul George is currently experiencing the worst shooting start of his career at 39/31%. The closer you look the uglier it gets too. He's shooting just 37% in the fourth quarter and only 32/18% in clutch time situations. Safe to say, this is a problem. Tatum did have that nice 4 game stretch of solid production, but it was against mostly terrible teams. Since then, he's right back to struggling over his last three, shooting 27/19%. It's been brutal.

So naturally, I wanted to look into this a little deeper. There are those who go with the lazy analysis and say shit like "Tatum just sucks!". OK cool, good talk. But that's not how my brain works. I want to see the areas that are contributing to his struggles because I'm interested in how much of this is maybe fixable with scheme for example. To understand Tatum's struggles, you first have to break down certain things. First, let's look at his career numbers by month because it does tell a familiar trend to what we are witnessing

The optimist in me says, look, this is just his standard slow start, and that starting today we're about to get a whole new version of Tatum. This is not what I would call a small sample size either, it's his entire career. But there's more to it in my opinion. I wanted to see where these struggles are coming from. In some areas you expect water to find its level, for example when it comes to Tatum's open looks.

On the season, Tatum has taken 458 shots. Based on NBA.com's tracking, here's how those shots break down

"Very Tight" shots: 34 total FGA / 32.4% 2PT on 34 FGA / 0% 3PT on 0 3PA

"Tight" shots: 203 total FGA / 43.5% 2PT on 154 FGA / 28.6% 3PT on 49 3PA

"Open" shots: 177 total FGA / 42.5% 2PT  on 73 FGA / 30.8% 3PT on 104 3PA

"Wide open" shots: 44 total FGA / 80% 2PT on 20 FGA / 41.7% 3PT on 24 3PA

This breaks down to what you would think shit would look like for an offense that has been rather unimpressive through the first quarter of the season. What's interesting is when you compare his "very tight" and "tight" FGA numbers from this year to last year, they are virtually identical. This year through 21 games, it's a combined 237. Last year, it was 240. The difference is Tatum shot 51% on "very tight" and 45/38% on "tight" coverage. So while there's been some regression in this area, that's not all that surprising. I would almost consider last year's efficiency the outlier. Making contested shots at a high efficiency clip isn't too normal unless you're like Steph or KD. 

I would also argue that Tatum's "wide open" looks are fine as well. The glaring dropoff is in the "open" category. A total of 38% of Tatum's FGA this year have been "open" yet he's shooting just 42.5/30% splits. That's BRUTAL, especially from three. We've seen Tatum drop from 38% last year to just 30% on open threes this year. Watching him take these shots, I'd say an overwhelming majority of them are in & out, so it's not like he's nowhere close. He's just experiencing what every basketball player has gone through during a shooting slump, and why it's so damn frustrating. You can see it on his face whenever another open three rims out. So, what does this all mean? It means I'm not really expecting Tatum's "tight" and "very tight" production to change all that much. His production isn't all that different from last year. I would expect his "open" shooting to come around, especially from three because he's shown the ability to make open threes. That's the good news.

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But we can dig deeper. Let's talk about the zones from which Tatum is shooting. First, with a chart

So much red. I know Carl loves seeing Red right now but this makes me want to claw my eyes out. Here's each zone

Restricted Area: 56.5% vs 68.1% last year

In the paint: 32.8% vs 38.8% last year

Midrange: 38% vs 38% last year

Corners: 34.8% vs 36.6% last year

Above the break: 31.8% vs 38.9% last year

I mean, maybe the answer is to have Tatum never shoot from the left side? Has Ime considered that? I feel like everything should be on the table right now. The true concerning part is how he's doing in the paint and around the rim. This is where I think the new rules are doing him no favors. He's not getting calls, and these shots are counting against his FG% as opposed to being FTs. To be so low in the restricted area and the paint is both frustrating and a reason for hope. If there's an area where you could assume Tatum starts to improve, it's within 2ft of the rim. 

Which brings us to the next part. The types of shots that Tatum is taking

Biggest things that stand out to me are his jump shot numbers and his layup numbers. Those are FAR too low. I know people want Tatum to be aggressive, and this tells me Tatum does have a ton of room to grow in that area. A total of 336 of his 458 (73%) are not what I would call shots coming from around the rim. Maybe some of those fadeaways are close, but you get the idea. On the season, Tatum has 263 total drives and 117 FGA coming from those drives. His 38% on drives is drastically lower than everyone that sits around him. So just think about it. A guy that's 22nd in the league in total drives this year is shooting 38% on that specific play, and part of that is due to the fact that he's really struggled finishing at the rim/paint. Sometimes he drives just to drive and doesn't seem to have a plan, almost looking to be bailed out with a foul that is never ever ever ever ever ever going to come for him. 

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So, if someone were to ask what's the deal with Jayson Tatum's shooting, it's not that he doesn't have the "it" factor. It's not that he "doesn't care about winning" or any of the shit that makes for entertaining talk radio but aren't real tangible reasons to help explain his struggles. To me, it's pretty simple. He's been unable to make his open looks combined with some heavy regression around the rim and in the paint. Part of that can be attributed to rule changes and things no longer being called, but part of it is the fact that Tatum doesn't appear to be as aggressive based on the breakdown of the types of shots he's taking. 

All in all, this gives me mixed feelings. I feel good about Tatum's ability to make open shots, but I do fear that the lack of movement and overall lack of offensive strategy is going to continue to make life hard on Tatum when it comes to contested looks. I fear that his lack of production at the rim and even less chance of getting a foul makes him hesitant to stay aggressive. Part of this is a roster construction issue as well you have to remember. When we see lineups with 3 or 4 non shooters on the floor with Tatum, teams are packing the paint. They can be overaggressive on Tatum because they'll live with other guys beating them. 

But I do think that once we see Tatum get back to hitting his open looks and layups at the type of clip we're used to, things overall will look a whole lot better, at least from an efficiency standpoint. What we still need to see him get better at is when he gets off to his 1-5 start to not settle for tough shots. That only compounds the problem and 1-5 turns into 2-10 before you can blink and the Celts are down 10 before you can even catch your breath.

History says we're about to see a shift in his play. It's been that way every single season, so hopefully that remains true in 2021-22.