Drew Hanlen — a basketball skills coach — implied that Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum isn’t seeking revenge after he didn’t play all that much for Team USA in the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Hanlen instead suggested that Tatum, who will turn 27 in March, believes his resume is comparable to the resumes that players like Michael Jordan, Stephen Curry and LeBron James had when they were around his age.
“I think a lot of people are like, ‘Oh, he’s out for revenge,'” Hanlen told ESPN. “I don’t think Jayson looks at it like that. He’s like, ‘Compare my résumé at 27 to Michael Jordan, who never won one at 27. Compare it to LeBron, who had won one. Compare it to Steph, who had one.”
As Tatum approaches his 27th birthday, he arguably already has a Hall of Fame resume. The former Duke University star has five All-Star selections, four All-NBA nods, an All-Star Game MVP award and an NBA title since he joined the league ahead of the 2017-18 campaign.
It is certainly impressive that Tatum is already an NBA champion, but he arguably wasn’t the best player on the Celtics during their title run. While he led the Celtics in points, assists and rebounds per game during the 2024 NBA Playoffs, he didn’t score the rock in an efficient manner. Tatum shot 42.7 percent from the floor and 28.3 percent from 3-point range.
There’s a strong case to be made that Jaylen Brown was the Celtics’ most impactful player when accounting for both sides of the ball. After all, Brown won the Eastern Conference Finals MVP and NBA Finals MVP awards.
Also, Jordan, Curry and James were all MVP winners in their 20s, while Tatum has yet to come all that close to winning the award. Tatum has never placed in the top three in the league’s MVP voting. He received sixth in the race last season.
The forward has a resume that few players in the league today can match or top, especially players around his age. However, it’s debatable whether Tatum has ever been in the conversation for being the best player in the league. Hence, it’s hard to tell if he belongs in the same breath as Curry, Jordan and James when thinking of each of those players at roughly 27.
