BOSTON — Jayson Tatum is only 26. But the Celtics star has lived in the spotlight long enough to know the perils that come with it.
There were nine off days between Boston’s sweep of Indiana in the Eastern Conference finals and Game 1 of the NBA Finals against the Mavericks on Thursday night at TD Garden.
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That means nine days of ESPN talking heads and sports radio shows searching for things to fill air time. Whether Tatum was outwardly joyful enough when Jaylen Brown was named Eastern Conference MVP filled some of that air time. That leading him to the following exchange at NBA Finals media day:
Question: You’ve probably been the most scrutinized player during this postseason.
“Think so?” he responded smiling.
Tatum said he’s less fazed by the nitpicking than people close to him are.
“I think more so than me it’s my mom, my grandma, my family and friends. They’re more bothered by it than me,” he said. “I understand. If Deuce (his son) was to make it to the NBA, people were talking about him every single day, as a parent, I wouldn’t be able to separate the superstar from the child. My mom took it a little tougher than maybe I did. But for me, I don’t take it personal, right? Just a long break without NBA basketball, so they had to overanalyze every little thing, have something to talk about.
“Did it get old? Yeah. But, you know, it’s the Finals,” he continued. “They wouldn’t talk about me if I wasn’t good, so… Try to take some positives out of it and change the channel.”
Jaylen Brown, who lives under a similar microscope, said it isn’t easy.
“It’s a fair question. I think it’s fair to say that it does affect you being embraced versus being scrutinized,” he said and referenced the African proverb:
A child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.
Brown had no immediate plans to burn anything, but he understood the message.
“You get to a point where you get scrutinized enough for a large part of your career, it becomes normal. Then it just rolls off you,” he said. “It’s kind of been that my whole career in a sense. Just being booed when you were drafted to saying you were overpaid, saying you were overpaid again. It’s been that the whole journey for me. It just becomes another headline.”
Jrue Holiday has only been teammates with Tatum and Brown for a season, but saw Giannis Antetokoumpo deal with similar attention in Milwaukee.
“The pressure that JB and JT have to take on is something different,” he said. “I’ve told them this before, but it’s really impressive how they handle themselves, how they stay professional, how they still come out every game and do what they do.”
