Recently, Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics broke through to win their first NBA championship in the better part of two decades by knocking off Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks in the 2024 NBA Finals. While Tatum didn't perform quite consistently enough to win the Finals MVP award–which instead went to Celtics teammate Jaylen Brown–the multi-time All-Star saved his best for last, scoring an efficient 31 points and dishing out 11 assists in the Celtics' Game 5 elimination of Dallas.
Tatum has long been a subject of debate in NBA circles about what his standing truly is in the league, with some Celtics fans going so far as to make the shocking claim that he was better than Luka Doncic heading into the Finals, something that wasn't exactly supported by his performance throughout the series. Other fans are on the opposite end of the spectrum, with some opining that the star isn't even a top ten player in the NBA.
Recently, Celtics legend Paul Pierce took to FS1's Undisputed, and his Tatum claim is sure to ruffle some feathers.
“The best player on (Team USA) is Jayson Tatum,” said Pierce, via UNDISPUTED on X, the social media platform formerly referred to as Twitter. “If y'all are in a room with LeBron, Steph, and (Kevin Durant), and y'all are playing a pickup game, even though you know who Tatum is, you're going to probably pick LeBron first just based off of, that's LeBron. That's KD. That's Steph. Like come on. But we know these players are well past their prime. Still great. But well past their prime. But if we're talking about a popularity contest, they're going to take the cake.”
As Pierce referenced, Tatum is currently teammates with James, Curry, and Durant on Team USA, preparing to try to win Olympics gold in Paris this summer. The question of who the best player on that team is has been running rampant in NBA media circles as of late, especially considering there isn't much else to talk about with free agency winding down and the actual season of course long concluded.
Where does Jayson Tatum rank in the NBA?
Of course, there is no objective answer to that question. On paper, Tatum checks a ton of boxes that teams would want in their franchise player. He's a very good defender, an efficient outside jump shooter (2024 playoffs aside), elite driver of the ball, and has grown tremendously as a facilitator for his teammates.
Tatum also has some well-documented flaws, including his propensity to try to emulate his late idol Kobe Bryant by taking heavily contested fallaway jumpers in clutch situations, shots that he just isn't very efficient at making. However, in the few crunch time situations that the Celtics had during their 2024 postseason run, Tatum was mostly able to curb those habits and be the best version of himself at the end of games, particularly in the series vs the Indiana Pacers, in which three out of the four games went down to the wire.
In any case, don't expect LeBron James and Stephen Curry's respective fanbases to take to Pierce's comments very kindly.
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