Jayson Tatum is averaging 26.3 points, 6.1 rebounds and 7.5 assists through 11 games, per Basketball Reference, and the Celtics are 10-2. His shooting is down: 41.3 percent from the field, second-lowest of his career behind last season’s 41.1, and 30.6 percent from three, his lowest ever. Three other numbers are the best of his career: the 7.5 assists, 8.9 free-throw attempts a game and 88.8 percent at the line.
My take: the passing is the real story of Tatum’s season, and it should stay even after his jumper comes all the way back. The free throws are louder but less certain. The playmaking has shown up almost every night, on good shooting nights and bad ones, and it is a big reason Boston’s offense ranks sixth while he shoots like this.
Career highs next to career lows
Here is how this season compares with Tatum’s last full season, 2024-25, per Basketball Reference:
| Stat | 2024-25 | 2026-27 |
|---|---|---|
| Points | 26.8 | 26.3 |
| Assists | 6.0 | 7.5 |
| Free-throw attempts | 6.1 | 8.9 |
| Free-throw % | 81.4 | 88.8 |
| 3-point % | 34.3 | 30.6 |
| Assist % | 27.0 | 37.4 |
| Free-throw rate | .300 | .460 |
| True shooting % | 58.2 | 56.4 |
Before this season, his best assist average was that 6.0 in 2024-25. His best free-throw-attempt average was 8.4, in 2022-23, the year he scored 30.1 a game. His best free-throw percentage was 86.8, in 2020-21. All three marks are new highs.
The assist percentage is the number I keep coming back to. Basketball Reference estimates that Tatum has assisted on 37.4 percent of his teammates’ baskets while he’s on the floor, up from 27.0 two seasons ago. That is a different role.
Tatum ruptured his Achilles tendon on May 12, 2025, in a playoff game against the Knicks, and didn’t play again until March 6, 2026, when he had 15 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists in a win over Dallas, per the NBC game story by Darren Hartwell, Nick Goss and Chris Forsberg. He played 16 games last season and shot 41.1 percent, per Basketball Reference. This is his first full season since the injury, and he is a 28-year-old learning what his game looks like now.
The passing has been there every night
Tatum’s assist totals by game, per his Basketball Reference game log: 11, 7, 6, 8, 7, 7, 9, 9, 6, 4, 8. He has had at least six in 10 of his 11 games. He has 82 assists and 31 turnovers.
The opener in Detroit is the best example. Tatum shot 6 of 23 and 0 of 7 from three, and he still had 11 assists. The same thing happened Wednesday in Toronto, where he shot 6 of 21 and had eight assists, including the pass to Neemias Queta for the dunk that started Boston’s closing 8-0 run.
Chris Forsberg tracked the details early in his One Possession column. In the 125-124 overtime win over Brooklyn on Oct. 27, Tatum had 88 touches, 56 passes, eight assists and no turnovers. Through four games he was tied with Cade Cunningham for fifth in the NBA in total assists, with 32 each. By Nov. 2, Forsberg had him tied for the league lead in clutch points with 21, with three clutch assists and no clutch turnovers.
Boston’s roster needs this version. With Jaylen Brown traded to Philadelphia for George in July, the Celtics need Tatum to create for others. Paul George is shooting 44.0 percent from three on 8.4 attempts a game, per Basketball Reference, and Sam Hauser and Baylor Scheierman are both above 43 percent. A Tatum who draws two defenders and finds those shooters is worth more to this team than a Tatum who hunts his own 3s.
The free throws come with an asterisk
The free-throw jump is real, but it is lumpy. Tatum took 22 free throws against Brooklyn and 17 in Orlando. That is 39 of his 98 attempts in two games. In his other nine games he has averaged 6.6 attempts. That’s still more than the 6.1 he took in 2024-25, but nowhere near 8.9.
He also took just four free throws in Milwaukee on Nov. 8 and two in Philadelphia on Nov. 10 before getting to the line 12 times in Toronto. He made 87 of his 98 attempts, and his 88.8 percent mark is the best of his career. When he gets there, he cashes in. I expect the 8.9 a game to drift down.
The jumper is already turning
The 30.6 percent from three hides a split. Tatum made 11 of his first 48 threes in the first seven games of the season, per his game log. In the last four, starting with the 39-point win in Charlotte, he is 15 of 37, or 40.5 percent. The trend is up even with a 2-of-11 night in Toronto in there, and he is making 48.4 percent of his 2-pointers.
If the shooting climbs back toward his career 36.7 percent from three while the passing holds, Tatum’s true shooting goes up with it, and Boston’s sixth-ranked offense gets better. The defense is already second in the league, per Basketball Reference.
The risk is the other way: that as the shots fall, Tatum drifts back to the player who averaged 10.1 three-point attempts a game in 2024-25. The version of Tatum who made the right pass on a 6-of-23 night in Detroit is the version a team without Brown needs.
What to watch Sunday
Boston hosts Dallas on Sunday, its first game since finishing a 4-0 road trip. The number I’m watching is Tatum’s assists on a night his shot is falling. If he still gets to seven or eight while making his 3s, the passing is part of who he is now, and the Celtics have a better player than the one who left in May 2025.