Jayson Tatum says title ends ‘debate’ on his elite status

Fresh off an NBA title and signing a historic contract extension over the weekend, Jayson Tatum visited Sin City for his first Team USA training camp practice on Monday.

“A hundred percent,” Tatum said, shortly after participating in his first practice here after being excused from the opening two days of preparation for the Paris Olympic Games. “Just being at the topic of discussion of so many debates or whatever it is … ‘Can he lead a team? Is he a top-five player?’

“There’s still a lot of things I guess they can debate. But now I’ve done something that they can’t debate: I’ve won a championship. Having that under my belt, like obviously it’s still conversations to be had or whatever people want to say, but they always got to refer to me as an NBA champion.”

There is no arguing that Tatum and the Boston Celtics followed up leading the league with 64 regular season victories by going 16-3 in the postseason. This is second only to the 16-1 mark by the Golden State Warriors in terms of playoff winning percentage since the NBA went to four seven-game rounds in the playoffs.

Tatum said that the championship parade last month was “the best two hours of my life” and that it was hard to explain how “insane” the atmosphere and energy were in the city that day, as the Celtics beat long-time rivals, the Los Angeles Lakers, to become the NBA leader with 18 championships. 

However, if anyone was wondering that the Celtics, especially coach Joe Mazzulla would be relaxing after winning that first championship, Jayson made it clear that would not happen.

“Joe is already trying to draw up s— for next season,” Tatum said with a smile. “And I was like, ‘Joe, f— that. We just won a championship. Enjoy it. Relax.’

“Like, I’m not worried about any sets that he’s trying to put in right now. We had a laugh about it, because he’s just so driven — which we all are, but it’s like, man, we worked so hard for this. So we got to enjoy it.”

Tatum is also enjoying Boston’s roster continuity entering next season. The team has re-signed centres Luke Kornet, Neemias Queta and Xavier Tillman in free agency. They inked both Jayson and All-Defensive Team guard Derrick White to long-term contract extensions.

Currently, Boston has kept 13 of 15 players from its championship-winning roster, with first-round pick Baylor Scheierman replacing Oshae Brisset and SVI Mykhailiuk. Tatum is excited for this change, stating that he hopes everyone from last season’s team will be back.