For the first time in his ten-year career, Jayson Tatum will look to lead the Boston Celtics without his running mate Jaylen Brown, who was traded to the Philadelphia 76ers this offseason.

The pressure is solely on Tatum’s shoulders to lead the Celtics to be one of the best teams in the East this season, like Brown did without Tatum last year, leading Boston to the No. 2 seed in the playoffs.

This is going to be the most challenging season yet of Tatum’s career. He was already returning to full form after his ACL recovery and now he won’t have Brown to lean on in his first full season back on the court.

Tatum has always been the guy in Boston, there’s no doubt about that. But he has never really had to endure the pressure and vitriol from the fans and media like it was in the past for Brown and even Marcus Smart to an extent.

It’s fair to say that Tatum saw how Brown led the team on his own last year and wants to show that he can do the same thing. He also has aspirations of being MVP of the league someday and leading a team to the playoffs on your own is a requisite of MVP status in today’s NBA.

For what it’s worth, Tatum has finished in the top-six in MVP voting over the last four years that he played a full season. Not to say that he won’t get there again, but that was playing on stacked teams in those years and always alongside Brown.

The supporting cast that the Celtics are putting around Tatum in this new era of Boston basketball is a veteran led bunch with additions of Mitchell Robinson, Mike Conley Jr., and Paul George this offseason.

Last season, GM Brad Stevens saw firsthand how well his team performed without Tatum, and that’s in large part to Brown, but it was also the overall foundation of the team behind Payton Pritchard, Derrick White, and Neemias Queta.

That said, Stevens feels confident in moving forward with just one superstar and giving him the range to do more with the complimentary players around him. This concept also showed that head coach Joe Mazzulla can be successful as he earned Coach of the Year last season with only Brown running the show.

Tatum has always been a better facilitator than Brown, and as the focal point of the offense, he’s going to have to lean into that skill more this season while elevating the players around him- which Tatum has historically done in his career.

After the Celtics were a first-round exit last year in the playoffs, Stevens said that he wants to see more plays at the rim, finishing with dunks instead of relying on 3-point shots. Stevens navigated the offseason with this concept in mind and strategically added pieces around Tatum to better fit the new identity and offensive scheme this season.

Stevens is banking on Tatum returning to normal form in his first full season post-surgery and it will have an impact on how the overall trade of Brown is justified in the near future.

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