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Celtics’ Jayson Tatum, Brad Stevens respond to report that Tatum is a ‘selfish’ player

justin quinn
·4 min read
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It probably should not surprise that NBA players and the front office of the teams they play for read the articles written about them by the NBA media, but it is a common thing in the contemporary news cycle for the stories themselves to become news through their coverage of star players.

And such has been the case for Boston Celtics All-Star forward Jayson Tatum, who was a focal point in a recent ESPN article by Tim Bontemps that cast the St. Louis native as a selfish player according to anonymous NBA sources. And while there is indeed truth to the notion that the franchise relies on Tatum and fellow All-Star wing Jaylen Brown more than is healthy offensively, it has been more a situation born of necessity and habit than poorly-used structure in the team’s roster, or selfish designs on anyone’s part.

Speaking to the media after Boston’s 88 – 87 win over the Philadelphia 76ers Wednesday night, Tatum shared his feelings in a jocular — but still clearly bothered — tone.

“I (saw) a report the other day that said I was a ‘selfish’ player,” said the Duke product.

“It seems pretty unselfish of me, but whatever it takes for us to win (I’ll do). More often than not, it will be in my hands, but we play 82 games in the regular season.”

Asked specifically about if he was happy with his recent performance in a win against the Toronto Raptors that saw him find ways to help his teammates on one of his worst shooting nights of a season filled with bad ones, Tatum responded affirmatively.

“For sure, because I contributed to winning. I still dominated, I still impacted the game at a high level without necessarily scoring 30, 40 points and still winning. I go home and sleep well at night.”

Former head coach and now president of the Celtics organization Brad Stevens also came across that report, and expressed a degree of incredulity eclipsing that of Tatum’s considerably in a recent appearance on WEEI sports talk radio show “Toucher and Rich“.

“First of all, I have a known rule — if you can’t put your name on it, don’t say it,” he began, attacking the aegis of anonymity in the article.

“There’s no way that that assistant coach would put his name on that quote, because first of all, he obviously has never been around Jayson” added Stevens. “Secondly, Jayson would kill him every time he played (their team) for the rest of his life.”

“That’s the way those guys in this league are wired. Piss off a really good player and it comes back to haunt you. I (get) the anonymous source thing and I understand why you have to write it. And I understand that’s part of it, telling stories.”

“Sometimes people don’t want to put their name on it, but I take it with such a little grain of salt,” continued the Celtics president with an abundance of skepticism.

Stevens wasn’t done however and went in on his incredulity even harder.

“To me, that line was a joke because I’m around him every day. And again, you look at him, he plays, he’s available, he competes. You’ve got a lot on his plate. He’s done a lot more in his first five years in the league than most of the league.”

“Totally, totally wrong in that guy’s assessment,” finished the President of Basketball Operations emphatically.

In fairness to Bontemps, it is sometimes necessary to offer anonymity to get such executives and other league-connected persons to speak to you on the record about things, and in the article in question that was likely the case.

But it also doesn’t mean that the responses are properly informed to Stevens’ point — or that they may not have an ulterior motive separate from the content of the words themselves.

We will as always let the reader be the judge.

This post originally appeared on Celtics Wire. Follow us on Facebook!

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