Growing up in St. Louis, there was no such thing as a plan B for Jayson Tatum.
“In my mind, there was never a plan B,” Tatum stated on the “Point Forward” Podcast with Andre Iguodala and Evan Turner. “Even to this day, people say, ‘What would you do?’ And it’s like nothing, I was 50 Cent, get rich or die trying, like I’m going to get to the league or die trying.”
Three All-NBA selections, four All-Star appearances, four trips to the Eastern Conference Finals, and over 10,000 points later, that same kid from St. Louis is now a face of the NBA, picking up some fans along the way.
The 25-year-old has undoubtedly emerged as one of the top players in the league, a reality he embraces with confidence.
“When I step on the court, I don’t step on the court and be like, ‘uhh, I’m the second best player,’ that never crosses my mind,” Tatum said. “Every time I step on the court, I know and feel that I’m the best player on the court.”
Despite all the accolades and resounding success, there is a glaring omission on Tatum’s resume – a championship, a fact he is well aware of.
“I know I can average 30, I was First Team All-NBA a couple of years in a row, I know how to do that. Not that it’s easy, but it’s like I know how to do that,” Tatum said. “Now, I’ve just got to win one.”
Winning championships is what it’s all about in Boston, a city whose teams have won a combined 12 championships since the turn of the century.
Although Tatum has come close, he and the Celtics haven’t been able to get over that hump, falling to Iguodala’s Warriors in the 2022 NBA Finals.
“It don’t mean nothing in Boston if you can’t win the championship,” Tatum said to Turner and Iguodala. “We lose to y’all, and I didn’t play well enough, and it’s like, as much as you can say you don’t pay attention to that stuff, you hear it [the criticism], it’s there, it’s accessible. Even the toughest-minded person, subconsciously, that’s on your mind.”
Even in defeat, Tatum learned some invaluable lessons under the mentorship of his former head coach, Ime Udoka.
As the 2021-22 season came to a close, the Brooklyn Nets sat as the seven-seed in the Eastern Conference. Brooklyn wasn’t your typical seven-seed, led by two future Hall of Famers in Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, the Nets were the title favorites entering the season and were a matchup other teams in the Eastern Conference were looking to avoid.
However, it was a challenge the Celtics embraced.
“It was the last day of the season, and there was certain teams that were like not trying to be the two-seed because they didn’t want to play against Brooklyn, and we was like, ‘Regardless you gonna have play somebody to get to where you want to get to,’” Tatum recalled. “That was the first time I felt like alright, I gotta play to the level of KD [Kevin Durant] to get us past this.”
Tatum did just that. The then 24-year-old averaged 29.5 points and 7.3 assists, en route to a Celtics sweep. That mental toughness is something Tatum credits Udoka for.
“His approach to the game, to us, that mentality, like we would watch film, and he would pause it, and it’d be a time when I was guarding Bron [LeBron James] and I let him get past me, he would pause it and would be like ‘Yo, y’all not friends, y’all not homies, you’re trying to get to where he at.’ That mentality every day,” Tatum explained.
“He said ‘We aren’t no track team, we not running from nobody, if we gotta play the Nets, we gotta play them. For that message to come from the top, from the coach, I think it just ran through everybody, we was on that, ‘we’re not running from nobody, whatever it takes, whoever we got to play, that’s what it’s gonna be.’”
Winning the Finals is the most challenging feat in professional basketball, a realization Tatum came to after falling short that season.
“It made me realize how hard you have to work to get there, and how much harder, and tougher, and more together, and smarter you have to be to win,” Tatum stated. “I know I didn’t play great in the Finals, but it was almost like, yeah, we lost, they got one on me, but they f—d up, I figured out how to get there.”
Tatum’s time will eventually come. LeBron James was 27 when he won his first title, Stephen Curry was 26, and Durant was 28. As Tatum enters his prime, his time is coming, and when it does, he knows it’ll be a special moment.
“Honestly, I didn’t understand how special of a place Boston was until I got here,” Tatum said. “But this is a special place. They love their sports teams, they love their guys. I feel like they’ve been embraced, I feel like they’ve accepted me as one of their guys. There’s a sense of pride, there’s an edge you have to have to play here. I can only imagine the love, the reception if you hung one of those banners up. It would be incredible — it’s going to be incredible. I know it is.”
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