There would have been a very easy answer for Jayson Tatum to give at Media Day.
Jaylen Brown is in Philadelphia, and with him goes at least some of the oxygen that fueled years of “who’s the alpha in Boston?” conversations. Joe Mazzulla is calling this season the beginning of a “new era.” Tatum is entering Year 10 in Boston, healthy again after an offseason spent getting his body back to where he wants it. From the outside, there is considerably less ambiguity than there used to be about who sits
at the center of the Celtics universe.
So when Tatum was asked at Media Day whether this was now “his team,” he could have said yes.
Instead, he pushed back on the question itself.
“It’s not a simple thing of, ‘Is this my team?’” Tatum said. “I don’t know if that’s the answer you’re looking for.”
If you were looking for a spicy viral clip, it wasn’t. His actual answer was probably more revealing.
“I understand the roles that we all play on this team. Everybody’s role is different. That’s what makes us a team,” Tatum said. “We all bring something different on a daily basis to make the group better, add towards winning, make this organization better. So it’s not just my team. I got 14 other teammates that I’m going to lean on, and we all need each other to be better every single day.”
There’s an obvious irony to all of this. The Celtics have probably never looked more like Tatum’s team from the outside.
The partnership that defined most of his career is over. In his Media Day press conference, Tatum called Brown’s departure “tough,” acknowledging the business side of the NBA while saying he was grateful for what the two accomplished together.
Now, their separation is going to invite a different kind of attention.
There will be more questions about leadership. More attempts to decipher Tatum’s body language. Probably plenty of nights when every good or bad thing Boston does becomes some referendum on what Tatum looks like without Brown beside him.
But if anyone expected Tatum to respond to all of that by suddenly puffing his chest out and declaring himself the unquestioned owner of the franchise, they probably haven’t been paying much attention.
Tatum has never really taken the bait
“Very comfortable,” Tatum said when asked about taking on a leadership role. “This is Year 10, so just been through it all. Leadership is about a lot of different things. Self-awareness is the biggest one. And awareness of the group. Understanding we all have roles, and that we’re in this together.”
For years, the conversation around Tatum and Brown often seemed determined to force one of them into saying something the other could resent. Who was better? Whose team was it? Could they coexist? Did one need to defer to the other?
Tatum never really played along. Even as he became the more decorated player and eventually the face of the franchise, he rarely seemed interested in turning that into some public declaration of status. Monday was more of the same.
Derrick White said Tatum has become more vocal every year since White arrived in Boston, but he also pointed to the quieter part of his leadership.
“He definitely has his own unique way of being a leader,” White said. “He puts in the work, everyone sees him here … you come in here, like I gotta reach that level.”
That sounds much more like the Tatum Celtics fans have come to know: less interested in commanding a room than in showing up, putting in the work and gradually becoming more comfortable speaking when the moment calls for it.
None of that means his role hasn’t changed. Brown’s departure guarantees that it has.
And perhaps the clearest sign of that change isn’t anything Tatum said Monday. It’s who is now standing beside him. Tatum spent part of his Media Day availability talking about how much he watched Paul George growing up.
“He definitely was one of the guys that, when I was coming up, I used to watch a lot of film on,” Tatum said. “Just that archetype of two-way player, 6-foot-9, scoring at all three levels.”
George happened to be standing in the back of the room while Tatum said it.
When Tatum finished, the two dapped each other up, with George joking, “That was sentimental.”
There’s something a little strange, and probably pretty cool for Tatum, about that reversal. One of the players he used to study is now joining his team at 36 years old, entering a locker room where Tatum is the established Celtic and George is the newcomer learning how he fits around him.
A new cast around the same centerpiece
George enters Boston as a nine-time All-Star and one of the most accomplished players Tatum has ever played alongside. But George has already talked about his arrival in Boston partly through the lens of what his own experience can offer Tatum.
George said Monday that his years playing beside Kawhi Leonard can help him build an on-court relationship with Tatum. He also talked about Tatum having “a lot on his shoulders.”
George’s comments reveal something the “whose team is it?” framing misses. The hierarchy around Tatum has changed even if Tatum’s approach to it hasn’t.
Brown is gone. George arrives as an older star with experience playing next to another elite wing. White and Pritchard are both carrying larger responsibilities than they were a few years ago, while a collection of younger players are still trying to earn Mazzulla’s trust.
Tatum doesn’t have to announce himself as the leader of that group for everyone else to understand where he sits within it. His language hasn’t shifted dramatically, just the circumstances around him.
He’s also entering this version of the Celtics feeling considerably better physically.
“I feel great,” Tatum said. “Having this offseason to get stronger, get more explosive, or just work on my body in totality. I obviously feel much better than I did this time last year.”
George, who knows something about losing major time himself, said he thinks Tatum had a “tougher injury than I had” and expects the time away to ultimately make him better, forcing him to see the game “through a different lens” and changing his hunger.
There’s a strange symmetry to the relationship now. Tatum once learned by watching George. Now, George arrives in Boston with experiences that may help Tatum navigate a very different stage of his own career.
Of course people are going to ask whether this is finally “his team.” It’s the kind of framing sports conversations tend to demand, even if the person at the center of it has spent years showing little interest in the question.
Tatum didn’t suddenly discover some new philosophy of leadership Monday. If anything, his answer reinforced the one he’s been showing Boston for years.
He knows his role.
He knows how much bigger that role has become.
He just doesn’t seem to need ownership of the Celtics to prove it.
