Boston Celtics guard Jayson Tatum became a bona fide star in his third NBA season, and the 22-year-old thinks he's deserving of accordingly preferential treatment from the referees.
According to Joe Vardon of The Athletic, “Tatum is tired of not getting star treatment from officials and has been complaining about it on the bench and in the makeshift locker room.”
In February, Tatum was selected to his first All-Star Game. He averaged 22.4 points per game in the seeding games, slightly down from his average of 23.6 pre-hiatus.
Yet, for one of the game's top scorers and well-rounded offensive players, Tatum doesn't exactly live at the charity stripe. He took just 4.7 free-throw attempts per game in 2019-20, which put him outside the top 30 among qualified players. For some perspective, Houston Rockets guard James Harden led the league with an average of 10.2 free throws per game in 2019-20.
After two consecutive games in which he attempted nine free throws each early in the seeding games, the Celtics youngster attempted only 14 foul shots over the last four contests.
Whether the former Duke Blue Devil has reason to be irked or not, it is somewhat true that star players get more calls. In October 2019, Peter Li wrote a report on Medium analyzing various Last Two Minute Reports released by the NBA, and he found that players with at least six All-Star nods get more recognition from the refs on both ends of the court.
Clearly, Tatum is hoping to earn a few more whistles over the course of Boston's postseason run, which begins Monday against the No. 6 seed Philadelphia 76ers.
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