When you look at it like this, it’s pretty amazing
Duke product Jayson Tatum had a phenomenal year: he was an NBA All-Star, was first team All-NBA, won his first NBA championship became the cover boy for NBA2K and was part of the gold-medal Team USA for the Paris Olympics.
Yet he didn’t play nearly as much for the Olympic team as many expected and he has taken some criticism since winning the NBA title for various reasons, most of them inane.
Generally speaking, some players get universal praise during their career and some get reassessed starting when they retire.
That may ultimately be the case for Tatum, but this post on X gives some interesting perspective by comparing his first five years to Kevin Durant’s.
Both were five-time All-Stars. Durant was a five-time All-NBA player while Tatum has made that standard four times. He has two Finals appearance to Durant’s one and has outscored him in his first five years by 2,711 to 2,109.
If Boston wins the title again next year, he’ll have blown well past Durant, who is widely (and correctly) seen as a sure-fire Hall of Famer and well on his way to having his jersey retired by Boston, joining the likes of Bill Russell, Larry Bird and John Havlicek.
