Jayson Tatum, the Warriors, and the power of imagination

Jayson Tatum seems like a perfectly nice young man, thoughtful and driven. On the court, he is richly talented with a broad skill set packaged in a templatic basketball body. He will likely be taken somewhere in the first 10 picks of this NBA Draft and seems assured of having a lengthy NBA career.

Tatum, as a prospect, also feels painfully familiar.

The player comparison game can be especially misleading with draft prospects but the common comps you hear for Tatum — Danny Granger, Rudy Gay, Jabari Parker, Harrison Barnes, Carmelo Anthony, Paul Pierce — are unusually devoid of hyperbole. There are at least two future Hall of Famers in that group (plus, Carmelo Anthony, zing!) but they feel like a fairly reasonable spectrum of likely outcomes for Tatum’s career, right on up to his hypothetical ceiling.

Part of the reason those comparisons feel so reasonable is that they are bland. It’s a mix of good players but there’s nothing distinctive or rare about them. They are good wings with good wing bodies who make (or made) positive wing basketball plays. In a draft that feels like it’s defined as much by the uniqueness of the top prospects as their absurd talent, Tatum stands out as the familiar.

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The Golden State Warriors are one win away from sweeping the best player in the NBA out of the playoffs. They are one win away from becoming the first team in NBA history to go 16-0 in the playoffs, and one blowout away from becoming the first team since at least 1983-84 to finish a postseason with a per 100 possession scoring differential above +14.0 (they’re at +16.1).

Read More: The quiet journey of Kentavious Caldwell-Pope

There has been no shortage of hand-wringing about the Warriors’ dominance, the relatively young age of their core, and their apparent ability to hold things together financially for at least the next few years. They feel dynastic in a way that has been intensely discouraging to fans of 29 other teams and those who derive enjoyment from the little things, like competitiveness and parity.

The Warriors may feel inevitable. They are not. As they say, time is undefeated, and no basketball team lasts forever. That being said, Golden State has clearly devoured a tremendous amount of hope, even those chrononauts who recognize the steady advance of time know that it may be a few years before the Warriors come undone enough for a viable challenger to rise.

In the meantime, we are left with the task of looking for excitement in new places.

For some, unfortunately, those new places will be away from basketball. For some, it will be to sink into the Warriors and wrap themselves in greatness. Others will find their joy in the hand-wringing itself, the daily catharsis of shouting into social media abysses about how unfair the world is. And many more will head to the drawing board, occupying themselves with increasingly complex solutions for manufacturing an alternate reality, one that is more equitable and balanced.

I would posit an alternate pursuit. The solution for a lack of parity is not to create a cottage industry around manufacturing artificial structures of parity. The solution is novelty.

If you’re a fan of the Milwaukee Bucks, you’re probably already there. The hopeless flailing of the Cavaliers feels less urgent when you’re day-dreaming about lineups with Giannis Antetokounmpo at center. Or a healthy Joel Embiid euro-stepping in transition. Or Kristaps Porzingis coming off pin-down screens to hit dagger 3s. Or Nikola Jokic putting on puppet shows from the elbow, and the moment when defense clicks for Karl-Anthony Towns and the game begins to move for him at a molecular pace.

None of those teams or players are challenging the Warriors next year, none of those teams or players are assured of challenging for anything at all, ever. Even if they do someday crawl to the point of championship contention, it’s likely to be well past the admittedly distant expiration date of these Warriors. But these players are important, not just because they are good and could be great, it’s the way they and their teams represent the crucible of novelty. They are future stars and we can already see the ways in which they will express skill and aesthetic, function and form, differently than their basketball ancestors.

They are modern and fast and swole, with skill sets that contort the game into new directions. They are novelty incarnate.

Standing at the top of the mountain, this season may feel like a windowless gondola ride to the Warriors trophy ceremony. But what about Russell Westbrook and his triple-doubles? What about Embiid’s 31-game rampage? What about Dion Waiters and the Heat? What about the Wizards turning it around, and Isaiah Thomas turning us on? What about the season-long science experiment of James Harden and the Rockets? And Kawhi Leonard? And DeMar DeRozan channeling Michael Jordan for a month? Everything looks small and insignificant when you’re looking down from the summit. Peer up from the bottom and all the detail snaps into focus.

Novelty is not really useful as an organizational value (see Knicks, New York and Kings, Sacramento) but it’s there for fans and the league to grab onto. If things feel dire, treat it as a life preserver. If you just want an excuse not to think about the Warriors, go watch Ben Simmons throwing between-the-legs, off-the-backboard alley-oops to himself in a pre-game workout.

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Some team is going to find that Jayson Tatum’s talent is too good to pass up. Chances are they’ll be pleased with the return they get on the pick. He’ll put up decent numbers as a rookie, maybe make a Rookie of the Year case for himself. In a few years he might even be a good player on a good team, trying to work his way into an All-Star spot and build a playoff resume. And, chances are, his methods will be familiar.

Being unique is not the only way to be special and Tatum certainly could be the latter. Metronomic mid-range jumpers and scorers who can make the right pass and get their own shot will always be useful. Tatum has defensive potential and could be part of some switchy scheme to slow down an elite offensive unit. In short, he will almost certainly be useful. But as we watch the Warriors push Cleveland to the edge of the plank, utility feels incredibly inadequate.

Comparing Tatum to the rest of this draft class is not about booms and busts, or high floors and low ceilings, it’s about basketball played in a way we haven’t seen before, or at least convincing ourselves that could be the case. If the Warriors are going to win titles for the forseeable future, then let’s hope their journey back to the top of the mountain has to follow a different route, one with long-legged giants hitting impossible long jump shots, and teams of lesser talents hammered into new shapes by dominant lead guards.

Find something to believe in. If you can’t find something to believe in, lose yourself in imagining a basketball world where you can. And if that doesn’t work, just wait. I’m pretty sure basketball will find a way to show you something you’ve never seen before.