Jayson Tatum: ‘I Want To Be an All-Time Great, I Want To Be Known as a Winner’

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Boston Celtics Star Jayson Tatum: ‘I Want To Be an All-Time Great, I Want To Be Known as a Winner’ (Exclusive)



He’s 25. He’s on the cusp of 10,000 career points. He knows a championship is the only way to win the heart of a city that’s finally starting to feel like home



Published 09/07/23 06:00 AM ET|Updated 09/07/23 04:41 PM ET
Jeff Goodman



Jayson Tatum knows what matters most when he steps on the Boston Celtics’ famed parquet floor. He knows it’s not his 30.1 points per game, or the fact that he was just one of six players to average 30 a night last season—better than LeBron, Steph, and even KD.

He knows it has nothing to do with his four All-Star selections or three All-NBA nods. And he knows it doesn’t matter that he’s been to the postseason in each of his six seasons, advancing to the NBA Finals once and reaching the Eastern Conference finals three other times.

The only thing that matters is looking up at the rafters and seeing a banner celebrating the franchise’s 18th world championship, which has eluded the Celtics for 15 years. Even if he pretends otherwise, Tatum hears fans when they spot him pumping gas or out at dinner and yell “Banner 18!”

“Of course they’re going to talk about me,” he says. “That’s when you know you’ve made it, where they expect so much out of you. I’d rather them talk about you rather than not talk about you.”

Tatum is 25 and closing in on 10,000 career points. More than raising a banner in a city that has come to feel like home, he wants to change how fans talk about him. He wants to be mentioned in the same breath as the likes of Bill Russell and Larry Bird.


“I would love to be on the Mount Rushmore of Celtics,” Tatum says. “Bird, Russell, Paul Pierce and those guys. They paved the way. The one thing all those guys have is chips. I have to get to the top of the mountain to even be considered as one of those guys. I want to be an all-time great, I want to be known as a winner, and I believe I will be.”


The last time we saw Tatum, he was limping around on a badly sprained ankle he injured on the first play during Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals. The Celtics had overcome a 3-0 deficit just to get to that point, only to fall to the Miami Heat, 103-84.

It didn’t matter that Tatum averaged 27.2 points, 10.5 rebounds and 5.3 assists during the postseason. The loss only prompted more criticism for a player who had inspired headlines throughout his young career such as “Jayson Tatum Is the NBA’s Most Boring Superstar” and “It’s Time To Admit Tatum is OVERRATED.”

Losing to the Heat felt like a setback considering the Celtics had nearly raised banner No. 18 in 2022, taking a 2-1 Finals series lead before falling to the Golden State Warriors in six games.

Boston was supposed to bounce back last season and get No. 18 as Tatum and Jaylen Brown finally started clicking together. The franchise had momentum with GM Brad Stevens adding Malcolm Brogdon and Danilo Gallinari in the offseason, and coach Ime Udoka had found the team’s full stride midway through the previous season.

What could possibly . . . go . . . wrong?


Everything changed on Sept. 22, when Udoka was suspended for the season for a “violation of team policies” and replaced by anonymous second-row assistant Joe Mazzulla.

“It was two days before training camp, you lose in the Finals and everybody is working their tail off trying to get back — and get back to that point,” Tatum says. “Then you find out that Gallinari tears his ACL, Rob (Williams) is going to miss the first 25 games of the season, and then our head coach is no longer our head coach. It's not easy. It’s tough. You play in the Finals and you lose, and you’ve got to start all the way over. And we got November games in Detroit. It’s real. You're ready to get back to the Finals, but you can’t skip these steps.

“It was a lot, a lot to process and deal with. And I give us credit, we came together. I think it brought us together as a team. We had the second-best record. We could have had every excuse to start off slow and make excuses.”


The Celtics finished 57-25, winning the most games since 2008-09. But the regular season was largely irrelevant, at least for the majority of fans who were waiting to see if Tatum and Brown could win a title together.

First round of the playoffs: The Celtics took care of the Atlanta Hawks in six games. Second round: They beat league MVP Joel Embiid and the Philadelphia 76ers in seven. Boston got back to the Eastern Conference finals for the fifth time in seven seasons, but the 34-year-old Mazzulla’s decisions were questioned throughout the postseason. In the Finals, many felt he was out-coached by the Heat’s Erik Spoelstra. Tatum doesn’t want to hear it. He wants all of the criticism to fall on his shoulders.

“I think it was unfair. I don’t know what more Joe could have done,” Tatum says. “He wasn’t out there turning the ball over and missing free throws. That was us.”

Mazzulla returns this year with a season under his belt, but the longest-tenured Celtic, Marcus Smart, is now gone after being dealt to Memphis in a three-team deal that brought skilled big man Kristaps Porzingis back to Boston.

“I am for sure going to miss Smart,” Tatum says. “He was my teammate for six years and we’ve been through it all. We had good moments together, we had bad moments together. He’s somebody that I wish was going be my teammate forever.”

Smart was the heart and soul of the Celtics, his intensity and passion setting the tenor on the court. While Smart could be a lightning-rod as a veteran, losing his in-your-face approach leaves a void that Tatum knows he must account for — but in a way that matches his own style, which he describes as “reserved, quiet and laid back.”

“I'm never going to be Kevin Garnett,” Tatum says. “As much as people want me to be, that’s not who I am. The way I lead, the public may not ever see what I do.”

“When I need to, I make sure my voice is heard and I do it in my own way. I’m not going to be out there jumping up and down screaming. That’s just not my personality. As much as people want to talk about it and want me to be that, I’m not changing who I am. I lead in my own way. When I talk, everybody in that organization is going to listen. And whatever I say is always for the betterment of the team — and my teammates know that.”

Tatum is entering the third year of a five-year, $163 million deal that he signed in 2020, which includes a player option for the final season. He’s been ramping up for the upcoming season in Los Angeles, focusing on being more effective shooting 3’s off the dribble. And one other thing he wants to shore up: “I want to make an all-defensive team,” Tatum says. “That’s what I want.”


Expectations remain in the rafters after the Celtics signed Brown to the richest contract in NBA history, a five-year, $304 million deal that will kick in before the 2024-25 season.

“I was excited for Jaylen, and I wasn’t surprised,” Tatum says. “That was a no-brainer for me because he deserves it. He had a hell of a year, the best year of his career, and he was rewarded for that. It was the right time. People make a big deal of $300 million. The NBA makes a lot of money. Contracts will be $350 and then $370 million. That’s the way it’s going. I was happy for him. I knew it was going to happen, it was a no-brainer, but I still reached out to him and told him he should be proud of himself and his family. Don’t take it for granted. This is generational.”

Jaylen Brown #7 of the Boston Celtics and Jayson Tatum #0 during the second half against the Minnesota Timberwolves at TD Garden on December 23, 2022 in Boston, Massachusetts.
Brown and Tatum have been learning to play off each other instead of taking turns doing essentially the same thing on the floor. (Winslow Townson/Getty Images)Winslow Townson/Getty Images
Tatum admits that he and Brown struggled to mesh early in their careers. But they have improved significantly over the past two seasons, especially on the offensive end of the floor.

“I’m still 25 and he’ll be 27 in two months,” Tatum says. “We’re far from perfect. We won’t ever get the credit we deserve until we actually win a championship. That is the ultimate goal, but you can’t bypass all the things we’ve accomplished in the six years we’ve been teammates at a very young age. We’ve been to the playoffs every single year, we’ve gotten better. Yes, it took some time to figure out how we can be as special as we can be, and how we can co-exist and do it together. I know everybody says, ‘They take turns.’ I feel like we got to a place where we were feeding off each other, playing really well.”

LeBron James didn’t win his first NBA championship until he was 27. For Michael Jordan and Kevin Durant, it didn’t come until 28 years of age.

“We talk about it all the time. We are due to get over the hump,” Tatum says, relaying his conversations with Brown. “And it’s going to be well worth it when we do.”


Tatum arrived in Boston in 2017, a 19-year-old midwestern kid from St. Louis who felt uncomfortable in his new surroundings. He’s now a dad, and his 5-year-old son Deuce has been a pre- and postgame fixture at the Garden ever since he was in diapers.

“Just recently I started to feel the connection with Boston,” Tatum says. “I have spent my adult life here, my son has grown up here, I’ve grown up here. I’ve accomplished so many things. It’s happened so fast, and Boston has played such an intricate part of my life.

“I just feel like I relate more, a lot more in these last two years. At first it was like I live here, but I’m from St. Louis. I’m a St. Louis kid. Now I’m a part of Boston. I really feel a connection with the city and the people of Boston.”

Does he want to be one of those rare players in the modern NBA who spends his entire career with one franchise?

“You never know what can happen, but I love playing for the Celtics,” he says. “I figured out my space in the city and have grown to really enjoy it. I love the fans. It would be really hard to leave this place.”

Especially with Banner 18 hanging in the rafters.


Bob



.

So Ktron, are you implying that this season is the line in the sand and if they don't get it done now, it's time to bust the team up or would you give them a 3-year or so window going forward to get possible multiple titles?

I'm currently leaning toward the former. Trips to the ECF every year are nice and to be two games from the title, but that doesn't hang a banner.

Wavering in NC,

db