It is not a secret that Boston Celtics star forward Jayson Tatum is having quite a rollercoaster over the past few months. He's found himself in basketball controversies. There was his missing out on the NBA Finals MVP, which was won by his teammate, Jaylen Brown, after Boston took down Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks in the 2024 NBA Finals.
Then there was the issue with his usage with Team USA at the 2024 Paris Olympics, where he saw action for only four of six games and averaged just 17.7 minutes per contest.
Jayson Tatum can use all that as motivation as he prepares for the upcoming title defense of the Celtics.
Tatum also remarked that Joe Mazzulla is thrilled over those aforementioned basketball misfortunes, with the Celtics head coach thinking that Boston stands to greatly benefit from Tatum playing with such a huge chip on his shoulder.
I talked to Joe [Mazzulla] a lot,” Jayson Tatum told reporters when asked about his motivation heading into the 2024-25 NBA season (h/t Daniel Donabedian of ClutchPoints).
“Joe was probably the happiest person in the world that I didn't win Finals MVP and that I didn't play in two of the games in the Olympics… I am a believer that everything does happen for a reason. But it was a good experience.”
A motivated Jayson Tatum is definitely a good thing for the Celtics
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The Celtics are about to embark on an important mission of adding more glory to the storied Boston franchise. They have an opportunity to win back-to-back titles, which doesn’t always happen in the NBA. And if the Celtics are to pull that off in the 2024-25 season, they certainly need Tatum to be playing at a high level. As talented and deep as the Celtics are, they are still significantly dependent on what Tatum does on the floor.
During the 2023-24 campaign, the former Duke Blue Devils star led the Celtics in win shares (10.4) and value over replacement player (4.7), according to Basketball Reference. Jayson Tatum also paced the Celtics in scoring with 26.9 points per game while posting a 55.2 effective field goal percentage and a 60.4 true shooting percentage. As a team, Boston put together a 64-18 record last season.
Winning an NBA title should be enough motivation for any player on any team in the league, but if a summer’s worth of frustration bolsters Tatum’s play on the court, it’s easy to see where Mazzulal is coming from and why that would be bad news for Celtics rivals.
