Jayson Tatum on criticism over his Boston Celtics career

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Jayson Tatum has had more than his fair share of criticism since the Boston Celtics drafted the St. Louis native out of Duke in 2017. Can he be the best player on a title team? Can he play with costar on the wing Jaylen Brown? Does he shoot too many 3s? Can he be the face of the league with his reserved personality in front of the media? Will he be able to return early enough in the season from his Achilles tendon injury to help Boston in the postseason? Can he take a back seat to Brown give the success his teammate had without him?

We think you get the picture, but the seemingly ever-present sniping is not something he can ignore, either. "Some people might get unfair criticism more than others in different ways," said Tatum in an interview with Prime's Malika Andrews. "And I’m not saying that all of it isn’t warranted. I joke that had I won the championship in 2022, people would view this or that situation, or me, a lot differently."

"And I admit, I acknowledge I didn’t play well enough for us to win in that series," said the Celtics star. "I got outplayed, and the better team won. They deserved to win."

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"I think after that, there was just this narrative of, 'Oh, they’ve been to the Finals once. They’ve been in the conference finals three times. They can’t do it. He can’t do it,'" he added. "I was 24 years old when we went to the finals."

"That was my fourth time in the playoffs, fifth time in the playoffs. Some people don’t get to the playoffs until their fifth or sixth year. So I can say, yeah, I think there is some unfairness a little bit in that regard. I was 20 years old when I led a team to the conference finals against LeBron James. I was the leading scorer on that team in that playoff run, and we lost in Game 7. But through all of that, I wouldn’t change anything about my career. I’ve learned at every stop."

"I’ve gotten to the top and won the championship, fallen all the way back down to the bottom, and now I’m fighting my way back to get to the top."



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This article originally appeared on Celtics Wire: Jayson Tatum on criticism over his Boston Celtics career

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