“The Basketball 100” is the definitive ranking of the 100 greatest NBA players of all time from The Athletic’s team of award-winning writers and analysts, including veteran columnists David Aldridge and John Hollinger. This excerpt is reprinted from the book, which also features a foreword by Hall of Famer Charles Barkley.
“The Basketball 100” is available Nov. 26. Pre-order it here. Read David Aldridge’s introduction and all of the excerpts here.
From a young age, Jayson Tatum planned not just to reach the NBA, but also to become an All-Star. He mapped out everything he would need, both on and off the court, to reach that level. He trusted his chances until he actually reached the NBA. Then he realized one variable he had overlooked throughout all of his preparation for the rigors of professional basketball.
“Everybody’s so much better than you think,” Tatum said.
The Celtics selected Tatum with the third pick in the 2017 NBA Draft.
He earned a starting spot by opening night for a team that eventually reached the Eastern Conference finals despite some rotten injury luck. His talent stood out from the beginning. At 6-foot-8, he combined polished footwork, soft touch, and an awareness of how to impact both sides of the court. By any measure, he achieved immediate success. He just had a different perspective of his own NBA start than most and, perhaps, a warped view of his first weeks in the league. Early matchups against two of the league’s best players, LeBron James and Giannis Antetokounmpo, forced Tatum to think he might never achieve stardom.
“Damn,” Tatum thought to himself. “I don’t want to be a role player.”
Other players also opened Tatum’s eyes early in his NBA career. As a naive youngster, he didn’t expect the league to challenge him the way it did. He grew up considering certain players “trash.” He thought many bench warmers were useless. He believed Nicolas Batum was “just OK,” but Tatum’s preseason debut pitted him against the veteran wing. It was Tatum’s first professional game and the only time to date he has ever come off the bench. Nerves struck him hard before he touched the court. That Hornets team starred Kemba Walker and Dwight Howard. Tatum wasn’t anticipating everything Batum could do.
“He was taller than I thought,” Tatum remembered. “He was faster. He was stronger. He could shoot better. He was smart. He was getting me on backdoor cuts and off-ball actions. Like, I’ll never forget my first preseason game in [TD] Garden against Nicolas Batum.”
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The Celtics then started the regular season with two straight losses against James’s Cavaliers and Antetokounmpo’s Bucks. Tatum knew at that point his dream would not come easy. He went home after the second game and thought he might never compare to the NBA’s premier players.
“I was like, man, Giannis and LeBron are just — I don’t know how to get to that level,” Tatum said. “And I remember I had those thoughts. Like, this s— is gonna be hard.”
Those in the Celtics organization believe Tatum has scaled the NBA hierarchy through diligence and hard work. GM Brad Stevens would regularly point out that Tatum approached each day the same way whether he was coming off a great success or a significant failure. Head coach Joe Mazzulla seems to refer to Tatum’s character and integrity as much as any of his basketball traits. Jaylen Brown, who has seen all of Tatum’s career, praises his teammate’s behind-the-scenes work.
“Already, he’s one of the more talented players on the planet,” Brown said, “You add the effort, the detail, the work ethic on top of that, the focus level … he’s been able to be turned into what we see now. We all have contributed to that, but we all have gained from that as well.”
During Tatum’s first six seasons, the Celtics reached the Eastern Conference finals four times. As he laughed about once during an interview, one of the teams that fell short might have had the deepest roster of his career. The 2018-19 mix, with Kyrie Irving, never figured out how to mesh. That group won 48 games in Tatum’s second season before falling to the Bucks in the second round of the playoffs.
During Tatum’s rookie season, the Celtics advanced one round further even after losing Irving and Gordon Hayward to season-ending injuries. Months after marveling at James’s greatness, Tatum took the league’s four-time MVP to seven games in the Eastern Conference finals. During the fourth quarter of Game 7, Tatum drove down the middle of the lane, cocked back his right arm, and slammed a dunk over James. Before heading back on defense, Tatum briefly chest-bumped James to celebrate the bucket. It was another sign of Tatum’s growing self-belief. When the Celtics went on a long winning streak earlier in the season, his concerns about his place began to fade.
“We won 16 games in a row and each game I got more and more comfortable,” Tatum said. “And it got to a certain point during my rookie year where I was like, man, when I get a little bit stronger — I was still 19 for most of my first year — I was like, I’m going to be pretty good. I knew when I just got more time under my belt and got stronger and more experience. But after those first two games [against James and Antetokounmpo], I was like, ‘I don’t know if I’m going to be able to play that long in this league.’”
Tatum has packed all sorts of accolades into the first six-plus years of his NBA life. He reached the All-Star Game for the first time in 2020 and hasn’t missed it since. He won a gold medal for Team USA in the 2020 Olympics. He set the record for most points in a single All-Star Game with 55 in 2021 and also broke the record for most points in a Game 7 of a playoff series with 51 to close out Philadelphia in the 2023 second round.
“In the most humble way, I’ve been an All-Star four times. I was All-Star Game MVP, Eastern Conference finals MVP,” he said in November 2023. “I’ve been All-NBA three times, back-to-back First Team. All those things are things I wanted to do growing up. I’m proud of them, like, I’m thankful for that. But now it’s just, like, I’ve done those things. I know I can do it. I know I’ll probably do it again.
“But it’s like the only thing I feel like I haven’t done is win a championship. So all those things are important, right, for legacy. And the work that you put in, you should be rewarded for the things that you do. I don’t want to brush it off like that s— don’t matter. It does matter. But it’s like I’ve done that. I scratched those off the bucket list. Now it’s like I want to get to the reason that we all play. And that’s the most important thing.”
The Celtics reached the NBA Finals in 2022 but fell to the Warriors in six games. That loss was painful as the Celtics had a 2-1 series lead, but watched as the Warriors won the next three games and clinched on the Celtics’ home floor.
In 2024, Tatum and the Celtics returned to the NBA Finals against the Mavericks. This time, the Celtics finished the job, defeating the Mavs in five games. The Celtics went an impressive 16-3 in the postseason.
“We’ve just been through the ups and downs,” Tatum told The Athletic after winning the finals in Boston. “We’ve been through the highest of highs and some low moments. This is what it was all about.
“I just had to look myself in the mirror and see what I needed to do to get us over that hump. I did that.”
Career NBA stats (through 2023-24): G: 513, Pts.: 23.1, Reb.: 7.2, Ast.: 3.5, Win Shares: 56.0, PER: 20.1
Achievements: Four-time All-NBA, Five-time All-Star, Eastern Conference Finals MVP (’22), Olympic gold (‘20, ‘24), NBA champ (’24)
Excerpted from “The Basketball 100” published by William Morrow. Copyright © 2024 by The Athletic Media Company. Reprinted courtesy of HarperCollins Publishers
(Illustration: Kelsea Petersen / The Athletic; Photo: Maddie Meyer / Getty Images)
