Nothing went as expected for the Boston Celtics a year ago. Jayson Tatum’s season was no exception.

The Celtics entered the season as a favorite to reach the NBA Finals, in part because Tatum, who had been brilliant in the postseason as a rookie, was expected to take a major leap. Instead, the Celtics fell flat, as did Tatum’s progress.

When Celtics assistant coach Jay Larranaga sat down with Tatum before the start of this season, he told Tatum that was all behind them.

“I made a deal with him the day before training camp that we would not discuss last year at all,” Larranaga told ESPN last week. “This is my first year working with him, and so I just said, ‘We’re just starting from right here, doing what we know is right, playing the right way and working the right way.'”nfl nike jersey cheap

Amid everything that was going wrong for the Celtics last season, one thing was clear: Tatum didn’t look right.

“[I was] making the game tougher than I probably should have,” Tatum said last week.

He’d dribble into difficult midrange shots, including fadeaways. Those were shots Kobe Bryant, who worked with Tatum in the summer of 2018, made a living taking — and making. But the NBA has since evolved into a league hyper-focused on shots at the rim and beyond the arc — and, last year, Tatum didn’t take enough of either.

Among the 96 players who had at least 100 direct isolations last season, according to data from Second Spectrum, Tatum ranked dead last in efficiency, with an average of .70 of a point per play.cheap nike nfl jersey

Yet, despite those struggles, Tatum was isolating more than he did as a rookie (going from 2.89 isolations per game to 3.25, per Second Spectrum) and driving to the rim less (6.47 to 5.76).

“Last year was kind of funky in all aspects,” Tatum said. “I understand that. I acknowledge that, and I’m just trying to be better this year.”

His struggles offered Tatum a vision of what he needed to do to take his game to another level.

“Focus on getting to the basket much more,” Tatum said. “Shoot more 3s, and layups, and free throws.”

This summer, Tatum’s trainer, Drew Hanlen, put Tatum through the program he had used with Bradley Beal early in Beal’s career. The Wizards wing became a two-time All-Star after eschewing long 2-point jumpers and concentrating on more efficient shots.