Things have not gone smoothly for Jayson Tatum this season, He has career low shooting percentages across the board and the Celtics have once again sputtered to a .500 record through the first 28 games of the season.
And for the first time in Tatum’s career, he’s starting to hear about it. Tatum has drawn public criticism from his coach, his teammate Marcus Smart and is hearing it from fans and media as well.
On a recent appearance on the Celtics Beat Podcast Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe said that he thinks the hatred has simply gone too far.
“My goodness, you realize how young this guy is, right? And he’s trying to accept the responsibility of being the franchise player,” Washburn told hosts Adam Kaufman and Evan Valenti. “I think that’s a process because there’s no Gordon [Hayward] anymore, there’s no Kyrie [Irving], there’s no Kemba [Walker]. There’s no other guy he can look up to and be like, okay, you’re a max guy, too. It’s just him and Jaylen Brown.”
Washburn took particular exception to one anonymous Eastern Conference coach who questioned whether Tatum wanted to win or was simply obsessed with how own numbers.
“Well first of all, who doesn’t want to win on their own terms?… Everyone wants to win the way they think they want to win,” said Washburn. “I just don’t get that from Jayson. Here’s the thing, Jayson knows he’s gifted. Jayson understands how important he is to the team. And of course he wants to be a star. Nobody goes into this business of basketball or journalism or whatever and says ‘I want to be really average… And if you do, you have a really bad attitude.”
Washburn did however concede saying Tatum has not had his best year and NOT played his best this year so if he wants the criticism to stop he’s gonna have to up his game.
“If you look at the numbers, Tatum has not had a good offensive year.” Washburn told Kaufman and Valenti. “You don’t think that’s going to continue. You have to get that together, like, Tatum’s got to get himself right, Brown’s got to get himself right.”
Though Tatum is in his 5th season he is still only 23 years old. As Washburn noted, that’s the same age as Patriots rookie quarterback Mac Jones, and two years younger than Red Sox All-star 3rd baseman Rafael Devers. Point being, there’s a lot of room for growth so maybe, take it easy on the guy a bit.
“It’s kind of like sad in a sense that you have this guy, who’s a 23-year-old star, and everyone is just picking at him… It takes time.”
