Jayson Tatum is never going to be the face of the NBA, and that’s just fine.
People seem oddly fixated on Jayson Tatum’s legacy these days, and I’m worried it might tear society apart. So as an expert who has been arguing with strangers on the internet about this subject for three full years, it’s time I intervened.
The NBA is a highly personal league. Because there are so few of them, great players are more important to us than they are in any other sport. We develop parasocial relationships with them, want to be fulfilled by them and can become understandably defensive when people come for our prodigal sons. But it takes a keen eye to see the larger picture.
Despite the criticism, and the criticism of the critics and then the criticism of the critics’ critics, Jayson Tatum is exactly what he needs to be: a spectacular player on a spectacular team, who has achieved the pinnacle of NBA success. He showed how destructive his underappreciated, do-it-all skill set can be through Boston’s Saturday win over of the scorching-hot Lakers. The game was actually a perfect encapsulation of Tatum’s dynamic in the discourse, as the Lakers have two players some may put ahead of Tatum, but it didn’t matter, because his particular brand of greatness continues to put a very good Celtics team over the top.
He is never going to be the face of the NBA, nor is he ever going to be the best player in the league. And that’s fine.
To quote Michael Pina of The Ringer, we are absolutely missing the forest for the trees here. Looking at Tatum’s stature against all of NBA history ignores the kind of player he actually is. And we need to be asking questions about that, not “is Tatum really a superstar,” which is like asking if an apple is a fruit. Like… yeah, of course. But is the apple just… an apple, or is it a special, super apple?
In the NBA, most super-duper stars have some sort of magical power that no one has ever seen before, but Tatum doesn’t. Nikola Jokic’s vision or Giannis Antetokounmpo’s downhill momentum break the fabrics of basketball reality, while Tatum is just one of the most technically perfect swingmen we’ve ever seen. He isn’t the best at one thing, but he is really, super, duper, ultra good at everything. If you asked an AI to create the ideal NBA player, it would spit out Tatum.
Shooting, finishing, passing, rebounding, defense, dribbling. You could find a player in the league better than Tatum at any of these things, but try to find me one better than him at all of them. Gilgeous-Alexander? Much worse passer and rebounder. Antetokounmpo? Can’t shoot. Luka Doncic? Defensive liability. Victor Wembanyama could surpass Tatum one day in all six skills, but who knows if he’ll blossom into an all-world passer? Tatum is just so good at so much.
Instead of worrying about which player comps his critics have thrown out, let’s ask Tatum about his lofty aims. He has not been shy about his frustrations — he’s admitted he doesn’t feel appreciated for all he’s accomplished at such a young age — but he’s also been open about his ambitions, as before the Celtics set off on their 2024 championship run, he declared that he has his sights set on hallowed ground.
“I would love to be on the Mount Rushmore of Celtics. Bird, Russell, Paul Pierce and those guys. They paved the way. The one thing all those guys have is chips. I have to get to the top of the mountain to even be considered one of those guys. I want to be an all-time great, I want to be known as a winner, and I believe I will be.”
If we put our literary-analysis hat on for a second, Tatum is basically equating “being a winner” with “being an all-time great,” which I would argue is not how we actually calculate those things. Winning does not make someone an all-time great, nor does being an all-time great actually require that much winning. Nikola Jokic is already (at least) the 15th greatest player ever, and Tatum is not even in that ballpark; yet they both have exactly one NBA title. It’s stats and awards that set the two apart.
Tatum also names three players he wants to sit next to in Celtics Valhalla: Bird, Russell and Pierce. And I think those three are the crux of his legacy. He has no chance of becoming as good as Bird or Russell; those are two of the top six players ever, and Tatum does not have the skills to pay those kinds of bills. Pierce, however? Iconic Celtics player, but Tatum absolutely has what it takes to be better than him all-time. In fact, he’s careening towards doing that.
Is Pierce really an “all-time great”? For the Celtics, yes, but he’s nowhere near the Pantheon of NBA history with the likes of modern day legends Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant and even his personal idol Kobe Bryant. Tatum seems likely to retire a better player than Pierce, yet that may be his best stylistic comparison: beloved by his hometown fans, with a Hall of Fame career (and Tatum’s will be better), but never quite rising to the level of a national favorite.
Or, maybe all of these aura arguments are not just a waste of time, but directly contrasting with reality. Tatum actually might be face-of-the-league popular…just not among terminally online NBA fans. He’s third in the NBA in jersey sales — well above Antetokounmpo, Gilgeous-Alexander and Jokic — showing he resonates worldwide with at least somebody. Maybe that is not Colin Cowherd, but he’s not the president of the universe.
But can Tatum ascend past Pierce’s tier? Will he get to that last level?
Probably not. As a lifetime member of the Professional Association of Jayson Tatum Analysts (PAJTA, we’re working on the acronym), I personally think he lacks the superpowers he would require to elevate him to the legendary status of his iconic contemporaries, namely Antetokounmpo and Jokic. But he’s still undoubtedly great, and this cycle of offending and getting-offended needs to be stopped by acknowledging that there are different types of greatness.
Some wrongly assert that the face of the NBA must be American, a vaguely-xenophobic take that ignores how international the league has become. But the desire for a young American superstar has seen pundits project their desires for a “next Kobe” or a “next LeBron” onto Tatum, but they’re missing the boat entirely. We have the next faces of the league already, in the undeniable greatness of Jokic and Antetokounmpo and the promise of Wembanyama and Doncic. There is no good reason why those guys can’t define the league going forward, with Tatum continuing to dominate in his own way.
He’s a private guy, and namely didn’t say he wanted to be the “face of the league” in his statement of purpose I mentioned above. That’s not to say he doesn’t feel disrespected or isn’t marketable, but he’s certainly not the in-your-face celebrity that some want him to be. He has always cared more about his family and his game than being in the next Space Jam or Thunderstruck, being a player-GM or going after his haters on social media. But he’s his own kind of superstar, one who may ultimately win several championships and retire a surefire Hall of Famer. That’s who he is, and those who want him to be something else will be waiting a long time.
And that’s all good… because getting to that level in the first place is so rare. He’s snowballing a career together that might make him the third-best Celtic in history, and we should all appreciate the glorious player he is rather than worrying about who he isn’t, and probably never will be. Because it’s not about the forest of NBA history, it’s about each, individual, really awesome-looking tree.
