The butt of many jokes, memes, and talk show debates, Boston Celtics small forward Jayson Tatum is a notorious ‘fake superstar’. For years, fans around the league have rejected praising Tatum’s performance, in spite of his many accolades. Yet it is thanks to these fans that Tatum has emerged into this season with a chip on his shoulder, hungrier than he’s ever been.
The Celtics selected Tatum third overall in the 2017 National Basketball Association (NBA) Draft. After spending just one year in college to prepare for the pros, the bar was set high for the nineteen-year-old. In Tatum’s rookie season, he operated as a complementary piece to the ball-dominant Kyrie Irving, averaging 14 points per game and finishing third in Rookie of the Year voting. This season only scratched the surface of Tatum’s potential.
Once it was finally his turn to captain the ship, Tatum never looked back. In the 2019-2020 season, Tatum’s first without Irving, he finished with 23 points per game and was named an All-Star. However, for the Celtics—a franchise with the then-record 17 championships—this performance was hardly lauded; it was merely the expectation. If Tatum were to really earn his stripes, he’d have to bring a trophy back to Boston. And that same season, the Celtics lost their fourth consecutive conference finals. The inevitable assumption arose: Tatum wasn’t good enough to get the C’s over the hump.
This disappointment continued over the next couple of seasons. Despite having one of the most exciting teams in the league every year, banner 18 was too elusive for the Celtics to grasp. And, in a league which recently saw future Hall of Famers Stephen Curry, Nikola Jokic, and Lebron James lead their respective team’s to a title, lacking a true superstar remained an easy scapegoat for the Celtics’s troubles.
But everything changed last season. After commanding the Celtics to a league-best 64-18 record, the pressure was never higher for Tatum. And when the lights were brightest, he didn’t let Boston down. Averaging 25 points and 10 rebounds per game in the playoffs, Tatum won his first championship. However, even though he finally hoisted hardware over his head, the criticism didn’t stop. Many fans sought to discredit his championship, citing how other team’s injuries led to an easier playoff run and the fact that Jaylen Brown took home the Finals MVP award—not Tatum.
The 2024 Olympics, directly succeeding the Celtics’s championship, further invalidated Tatum’s stardom. The tried and true stars—like James and Curry—dominated the court, while Tatum struggled to fit in, averaging a measly 5 points per game and being benched multiple times. Tatum did not complain publicly, but his pent-up frustration was clear. The grimacing looks he flashed on the sideline became increasingly more noticeable. The whole situation foreshadowed a ‘monster’ in the making.
At the start of the 2024-25 season that monster thrust its way into the limelight. With 37 points and 10 assists in the first game, Tatum burst onto the scene and led the Celtics to a dismantling of the New York Knicks. Throughout the rest of the season thus far, Tatum is averaging career highs in nearly every statistical category and has the third-best MVP odds. This monstrous version of Tatum should scare every other franchise, not least because he has yet to reach his physical prime. At only twenty-six-years-old, Tatum has promise to be an auspice, allowing the Celtics’s hegemony to return to 1960’s form—a decade of unquestioned basketball dominance.