Draymond Green believes Jayson Tatum deserves more support for his campaign as the NBA’s Most Valuable Player. While the Golden State Warriors champion didn’t say the Boston Celtics star deserved the award, he said that his skeptics weren’t being fair while evaluating him.
“The Celtics are 7.5 games ahead of the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference,” Green said on the February 26 episode of “The Draymond Green Show.” “Do people think the Celtics are that great to where Jayson Tatum is only in fifth? Sometimes it’s like, that team is winning, and that guy is the best player and playing well. In this situation, clearly, that’s not the goalpost.”
Green elaborated more on the aforementioned goalposts, explaining what he’ll have to do to get MVP recognition.
“Clearly, the goalposts have shifted dramatically because, in this guy’s case, he’s fifth? And [the Celtics] have a 7.5-game lead in the conference? The goalposts have moved on Jayson Tatum. I know what JT has to do. JT will not be taken seriously for MVP until he wins a championship, and it just hasn’t been that way for everybody else, I must say.”
He also added that such wasn’t the case with other MVPs like Giannis Antetokounmpo, Nikola Jokic, and Joel Embiid when they won the award, saying, “it just really hasn’t been that way for everybody else, so I don’t know how it ended up that way for JT.”
Jayson Tatum Wanted Jaylen Brown to win All-Star MVP
Jayson Tatum has never shown himself to be a bad teammate. Quite the contrary, in fact. He wants teammates like Jaylen Brown to get accolades. According to Bill Simmons, Tatum tried to do his part to help Brown win the All-Star Game Most Valuable Player award.
On the February 25 episode of “The Bill Simmons Podcast,” Simmons gave the full details of how Tatum tried to help Brown take home MVP.
“At the All-Star Game, when everyone was going for MVP, it hit that point. The East was up 20, so (Damian Lillard) was in there, and (Tyrese) Haliburton and Jaylen Brown were going for it. And Tatum went to (Bucks head coach) Doc Rivers and said, ‘Give Jaylen my minutes. I want to see him win MVP.’ To me, that’s a real dynamic.”
Lillard won the award, but Tatum clearly wants
Kristaps Porzingis Credits Jayson Tatum
On February 24, Kristaps Porzingis singled out multiple Celtics stars for their sacrifices. Porzingis elaborated further on the sacrifices Jayson Tatum has made.
“JT deserves a lot of credit. He could say ‘f- it, I wanna score 30 every night. I wanna get the MVP.’ But he’s not doing that”
Kristaps Porzingis talks about the sacrifice everybody on the Celtics is making in order to win, but he says JT is making the biggest sacrifice
“Even JT, he deserves a lot of credit because he could say, ‘F it, I want to score 30 every night, I want to get the MVP,’ but he’s not doing that,” Porzingis said, per Celtics on NBC Sports Boston’s X account. “I think people are overlooking that. And you have to give him credit because when he does that, it makes everybody else do that, and then we’re winning games because everybody’s feeling good, everybody’s scoring, all dangerous.”
Even if he may not win the league’s MVP award, Tatum clearly has proven himself to be a good leader for the Celtics.
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Jayson Tatum’s MVP Chances Draw Criticism From Draymond Green