Jayson Tatum said the quiet part out loud.
Oops.
The Boston Celtics star appeared on the ‘Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon’ earlier this week, where Fallon playfully grilled him with predictions for the upcoming NBA season.
“Who do you predict will be the NBA’s next MVP?” Fallon asked.
After a pause, Tatum replied, “Can I say myself?”
The answer delighted Fallon and the studio audience, but incited strong language among ball watchers who want a repeat championship from the Boston Celtics – namely, ex-communicated-from-the-Shamrock-clan NBA champ Kendrick Perkins.
“He’s selfish, and it’s a great way of saying it. I’m not being negative right now, but look, seeking or concentrating on one’s own advantage, pleasure or well-being without regard for others,” Perkins said on ESPN’s ‘NBA Today.’
Perkins went on to recall a power struggle he had with Kevin Garnett during his own pursuit of reaching All-Star status during the 2009-10 season. That’s where his appearance gets confusing. He says eventually, Garnett came around to empowering him in his individual goal, and he has no problem with any star looking out for their own accolades.
Perkins’ roundabout word salad makes it difficult to tell whether he thinks Tatum’s “selfishness” will be good or bad for the Celtics as a team, but let’s be clear: selfish is a dirty term concerning Tatum.
Tatum’s career thus far has been defined by three things: his stake as a top-five player, his relationship to teammate Jaylen Brown, and his relatively tepid offensive performances in two trips to the Finals.
He overcame his biggest hurdle winning an NBA Championship in June, and got his team there through a season of deferring to his incredibly talented teammates. Tatum’s shot attempts last season dropped from 21.1 per game in 2022-23 to 19.3, and his averaged assists were the highest in his career. Ditto for the playoffs. His defensive rating during the regular season was 110.5 over 74 games – actually higher than DPOY Rudy Gobert.
When Tatum says he wants to win an individual regular season award, it’s called selfish, because the regular season has such a diminished connection to postseason success in the NBA. Plus, the Celtics don’t play star-centered offensive ball. They share the wealth among their very expensive lineup.
So, this is where it gets annoying. By casually predicting himself the MVP winner, he aligns himself in many minds with the likes of Russell Wilson and Joel Embiid. The fear is that Tatum’s already won his championship, so now his focus turns to himself and redeeming an embarrassing summer riding the Parisian pine at the Olympics. The fear is that, in an MVP pursuit, he’ll become a stats-eating ball hog who destroys the Kumbaya Celtics’ goal of repeating a championship before the team is sold to Amazon.
Let’s be realistic. Has Tatum ever been that guy? Yes, he has the biggest contract in NBA history and he’s excited to be on the cover of NBA2K.
But he’s never shown himself to be problematic teammate or egomaniac.
Would you have preferred to Tatum predict another guy in the NBA to win the award, on network television? Or would you like Tatum to sit back, and say that last season was enough, mission accomplished?
Even if Tatum made a single-minded pursuit of MVP (he won’t), it would be extremely difficult to statistically outperform Nikola Jokic and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Both stars are the sun around which their teams orbit. Tatum is more like Jupiter: the largest planet in the solar system, with a gravitational pull 2.5 times stronger than Earth’s, (I think Payton Pritchard might be Earth here).
Tatum should finish top-3 in MVP votes, especially with Kristaps Porzingis sidelined for the start of the season. He’s surrounded by so much talent, and the possibility of a repeat is so strong, any MVP award he gets will be in the Finals.
There will come a season when Tatum has to put up MVP-worthy stats for the Celtics to compete, and it might arrive sooner than we think, given the looming team sale. The hour in the Celtics’ window might be later than we think, but it’s still not Tatum’s time alone.