Paul Pierce Sees ‘A Mature Version’ Of Himself In Celtics Rookie Jayson Tatum’s Game

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The Boston Celtics made two moves that turned heads around the league this offseason. The squad made a massive trade to bring Kyrie Irving to Beantown, and Gordon Hayward moved east after the Celtics signed him in free agency. Those two, along with Al Horford, will constitute the veteran core of the team for at least the next few years.

Because the Celtics added a pair of superstars, it’s kind of easy to forget that they added a potential star with the No. 3 pick in the 2017 Draft. Boston selected Duke forward Jayson Tatum, a skilled scorer on the perimeter whose game has received some comparisons to Celtics legend Paul Pierce.

After watching Tatum play a little, Pierce agrees with that assessment. In fact, he went a little farther in his praise of Tatum, saying that even though he’s only 19 years old, his game looks like Pierce’s did after nearly a decade in the league.

First things first, credit to Pierce for hearing that a young player’s game is similar and then hyping the dude up even more. There are plenty of examples of older guys getting defensive when something like this happens — think Shaq and Dwight Howard — so watching Pierce praise Tatum’s game so much is awesome.

Anyway, this really is a good comparison. Tatum does have just enough Pierce in his game for this to work, namely in his footwork and ability to score in bunches. And Celtics fans probably would not complain if Tatum can play half as well as Pierce did during his sixth, seventh, and eighth years in the league, when the future member of the Basketball Hall of Fame averaged 23.7 points and 6.6 rebounds per game and made a trio of All-Star teams.

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