When losing your superstar makes you more (!) efficient
January 16, 2026
Interesting discussion on the Ewing theory featuring the Celts.
12 comments
Jaylens had a bad week so his efficiency has dipped a bit, but he’s at basically a career high in efficiency while also being at a career high in usage. it’s insane how good he’s been as a shooter.
Legends
Wonder if having Tatum will level up the offense even more, or if we’ll go back to mismatch hunting
Browns midrange game evolving into late 90s Jordan certainly helps but a big reason for this season is all the guys we had zero expectations of who are making real contributions. Queta looks like a real starting center. Garza is making an impact. Walsh and Hugo are pure energy and defense. Simons, while not Jrue, is an offensive air fryer off the bench and both white and Prichard have stepped up in the larger roles.
If they get Tatum back and he’s close to the talent he once was, I don’t think this means they revert to their prior style of play. I think instead he slots in well with the new system and benefits from these new contributors.
As others have said, Horford was ancient, Jrue was slowing down, and Zingis almost never played during the playoffs. Replacing that with young hungry athletes has closed that talent gap more than you’d think.
Funny thing about this video is it looks at a team’s record with and without a player. Well if you look at Tatum’s record without Brown over the years (61-27), you’d see that they continued to play at a 60+ win pace, but in games brown had played without Tatum (prior to this season) they generally were around .500 (18-17). Everything about this team is different this year and even in the first two games Brown missed, Boston still dominated beating Washington by 45 and Toronto by 16 so it’s not like he’s suddenly carrying the team. He’s 3rd on the team in win shares and VORP after being 6th the last few years.
All that to say, if they keep playing this style and Tatum returns close to what he had been, they might all collectively level up even more.
If Tatum comes back and if he is fully back to normal or not, we will learn a lot about who he is a person and a player. This is an opportunity to be a team player and fill in the gap for what the team needs and continue to let JB be JB fully and this offense continue. I’m hoping his ego doesn’t get in the way and he could be up for letting this be JB’s team as JB did for him for so many years.
Watching this video makes me rethink who we should be looking at as our big man starter. I don’t think Zubac is mobile enough to be coming out to the ball handler and setting multiple screens like Queta and Garza are doing. Maybe either one of the Nets bigs (Claxton or Holmes) would be a better fit.
Joe Mazzulla deserves his flowers
I legitimately wonder if Mazzulla basically has been bullying Tatum to studying all of the new offensive sets in preparation for his return.
Tatum is IMO the most versatile player in the NBA. He should be able to be plug-and-play to anything we are doing.
I don’t like the tone of this video. He makes it sound like Tatum will ruin the way we play when he’s literally known as a “Do Everything” kind of superstar. Does he honestly think we won’t get better with JT in the 4 slot? If anything the starters have been sub-par and our bench has been awesome so adding JT is going to juice the starters. Plus instead of JB sitting at the 6 min mark, it can be Tatum instead.
Plus the defense and rebounding is going to be so much better.
I said this last year, people denied it. We were often more efficient as a TEAM too.
12 comments
Jaylens had a bad week so his efficiency has dipped a bit, but he’s at basically a career high in efficiency while also being at a career high in usage. it’s insane how good he’s been as a shooter.
Legends
Wonder if having Tatum will level up the offense even more, or if we’ll go back to mismatch hunting
Browns midrange game evolving into late 90s Jordan certainly helps but a big reason for this season is all the guys we had zero expectations of who are making real contributions. Queta looks like a real starting center. Garza is making an impact. Walsh and Hugo are pure energy and defense. Simons, while not Jrue, is an offensive air fryer off the bench and both white and Prichard have stepped up in the larger roles.
If they get Tatum back and he’s close to the talent he once was, I don’t think this means they revert to their prior style of play. I think instead he slots in well with the new system and benefits from these new contributors.
As others have said, Horford was ancient, Jrue was slowing down, and Zingis almost never played during the playoffs. Replacing that with young hungry athletes has closed that talent gap more than you’d think.
Funny thing about this video is it looks at a team’s record with and without a player. Well if you look at Tatum’s record without Brown over the years (61-27), you’d see that they continued to play at a 60+ win pace, but in games brown had played without Tatum (prior to this season) they generally were around .500 (18-17). Everything about this team is different this year and even in the first two games Brown missed, Boston still dominated beating Washington by 45 and Toronto by 16 so it’s not like he’s suddenly carrying the team. He’s 3rd on the team in win shares and VORP after being 6th the last few years.
All that to say, if they keep playing this style and Tatum returns close to what he had been, they might all collectively level up even more.
If Tatum comes back and if he is fully back to normal or not, we will learn a lot about who he is a person and a player. This is an opportunity to be a team player and fill in the gap for what the team needs and continue to let JB be JB fully and this offense continue. I’m hoping his ego doesn’t get in the way and he could be up for letting this be JB’s team as JB did for him for so many years.
Watching this video makes me rethink who we should be looking at as our big man starter. I don’t think Zubac is mobile enough to be coming out to the ball handler and setting multiple screens like Queta and Garza are doing. Maybe either one of the Nets bigs (Claxton or Holmes) would be a better fit.
Joe Mazzulla deserves his flowers
I legitimately wonder if Mazzulla basically has been bullying Tatum to studying all of the new offensive sets in preparation for his return.
Tatum is IMO the most versatile player in the NBA. He should be able to be plug-and-play to anything we are doing.
I don’t like the tone of this video. He makes it sound like Tatum will ruin the way we play when he’s literally known as a “Do Everything” kind of superstar. Does he honestly think we won’t get better with JT in the 4 slot? If anything the starters have been sub-par and our bench has been awesome so adding JT is going to juice the starters. Plus instead of JB sitting at the 6 min mark, it can be Tatum instead.
Plus the defense and rebounding is going to be so much better.
I said this last year, people denied it. We were often more efficient as a TEAM too.
Remember kyrie first year
These videos are awesome