Jayson Tatum still is living off the high of winning the NBA championship, but the Boston Celtics star might not have silenced all of his critics.
Tatum told reporters this week in Las Vegas during Team USA practice that the doubters could not take away the fact that he is a champion. He also believed he proved he was one of the elite players in the NBA with his championship victory.
The critiques about his doubters stem from the exhausting debates over whether or not he or Jaylen Brown was the best player on the Celtics. Neither All-NBA star fed into the debate, but it was a discussion that got on the nerves of people like head coach Joe Mazzulla. It also was a debate that Skip Bayless revived in response to Tatum’s comments this week.
“Jayson Tatum is really, really good. There’s no doubt about that, and he is undoubtedly a champion forever,” Bayless said on FS1’s “Undisputed” on Tuesday. “And it will never be taken from him. I’ve sat in this seat and first guessed this for three years. ‘I’m sorry, he’s not the best player on his own team.’ He’s just not. I root against them (Boston) and I pick against them. I watch and the guy who terrorizes me, who makes me sweat watching the game is always the other guy (Brown).
“Take nothing away from Jayson Tatum because he’s really, really good. And he’s also really, really tall. … He’s got all the right intangibles, but the closer on that team, the guy that strikes fear in my heart is the other guy. And I’ve always felt sorry for the other guy because had to play in the shadow that was inflicted upon him by the team because they coronated Jayson before he really did too much because he was Jayson Tatum from Duke, high pick and we get that.”
Bayless’ rant continued as he debated semantics over who is Batman and who is Robin. And while he acknowledged both Brown and Tatum were No. 1 options, the feelings Brown struck in him were different than what Tatum brought.
“The point is I was rooting harder for Jaylen Brown because he did some things that astonished me and made me very happy for him because who was the MVP of the Eastern Conference finals? It wasn’t Jayson Tatum, it was Jaylen Brown,” Bayless said. “Who was the MVP of the NBA Finals? It was Jaylen Brown. I was like, ‘Whoa.’ It’s beautiful to watch because he deserved that, and I thought he earned that because the biggest shots made in the playoffs and in the Finals were made by Jaylen Brown. … The other guy is really good in different ways because the other guy is explosively athletic in ways I don’t think Jayson Tatum is. In the end, I’m talking about explosive athleticism with fire in the belly. I look at Jaylen Brown’s face and I go, he scares me because he is a cold-blooded killer. And I don’t know if Jayson has quite that stuff operating, that kind of fire burning deep down inside him.”
Bayless’ critique of Tatum certainly is nothing new, but it came at an interesting time after the Celtics won the NBA title. Despite what he and others might think about the duo, Boston and its fans sure are glad they’re on the same team.
