Jayson Tatum could end his Celtics tenure with 10 All-Star selections, a half-dozen All-NBA first teams and a clutch of conference titles. But unless he helps them hoist their 18th NBA championship banner to the TD Garden rafters, he won’t be able to call himself a true Boston great.
No one knows that better than Tatum himself. Speaking to a packed crowd of reporters Wednesday at NBA Finals media day, the Celtics’ centerpiece superstar acknowledged that his team’s standard for excellence is simply higher than it is in nearly every other NBA city.
In Boston, only champions become icons.
“We only hang NBA championship banners, right?” Tatum said on the eve of Game 1 against the Dallas Mavericks. “Seventeen of them. Some of the greatest players to ever play this game wore this uniform. All of us are honored to follow in their footsteps, the way they paved for us to live out our dream.
“Essentially, yeah, if you want to be one of the greats to put on this uniform, every great before you won a championship. That’s what we try to play for every single season. The expectations are obviously different here. It takes special players to be here and to be a part of an environment like that.”
Tatum nearly reached that rarefied status two years ago, when he and Jaylen Brown led the Celtics to their first Finals since 2010. Boston took a 2-1 lead in that series but dropped the next three games to Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors.
Those teams looked like what they were at the time: a multi-time title-winning dynasty against a young upstart with no real championship experience. The Celtics’ execution was lacking on both ends of the floor, and the Warriors won in six.
“I hate that I had to go through it,” Tatum said. “I wish we would have won. But I’m a firm believer in everything happens for a reason. There’s a lesson to be learned in every situation. I do feel a lot different this time, this go-around, two years later. I’m excited for the opportunity for us to get the job done.”
The biggest lesson? Despite head coach Joe Mazzulla’s insistence this year that the regular season and postseason are no different, sometimes it takes a loss on the game’s grandest stage to learn how to win.
“I think we understood what it took to get there,” said Tatum, who’s reached at least the Eastern Conference finals in five of his seven NBA seasons. “They understood what it took to get over the hump. … They’ve just been there before.
“In some of those tough moments, when I go back and look, you can tell that they had been there before. It was a lesson to be learned. I told myself that if I ever got the opportunity again to make it to the Finals, never take it for granted.”
Now, the Celtics are back, looking to right their wrongs from 2022 and break the storied franchise’s 16-year title drought. Tatum, a first-team All-NBAer in each of the last three seasons, leads Boston in points, rebounds and assists this postseason. His team won a league-best 64 games during the regular season and is 12-2 in the playoffs, albeit against a trio of weakened East foes.
“He’s there for every single practice, every single game,” Mazzulla said. “Loves being coached. Just carries himself the best way. There’s no one like him. He’s great.”
The national narrative surrounding Tatum, however, has been largely negative. His status as a top-five player has been questioned, his reaction to Brown’s East finals MVP award critiqued. He’s not viewed nearly as positively as his NBA Finals foil, Mavericks star Luka Doncic, who also does not have a Larry O’Brien Trophy on his resume. A reporter mentioned during Tatum’s media day news conference that the 26-year-old might be the most scrutinized player in these NBA playoffs.
“You think so?” Tatum replied, rhetorically, while smiling and pantomiming a basketball shot.
That criticism, Tatum said, bothers his mother and grandmother. As for his own feelings? He took the high road, chalking the chatter up to the interminable 10-day break between the end of the conference finals and Game 1 of the Finals on Thursday night at TD Garden.
“My mom took it a little tougher than maybe I did,” Tatum said. “But for me, I don’t take it personal, right? Just a long break without NBA basketball, also they had to overanalyze every little thing to have something to talk about.
“Did it get old? Yeah. But, you know, it’s the Finals. They wouldn’t talk about me if I wasn’t good, so try to take some positives out of it and change the channel.”
Changing the channel is easy. The only way to change the narrative and solidify Tatum as a Celtics legend and unquestioned NBA elite: beat the Mavs and claim Banner 18.