Getty Team USA forward Jayson Tatum.
There’s calling your shot, and there’s what Boston Celtics superstar and Team USA forward Jayson Tatum did in a fourth-grade essay project.
Tatum posted an essay he wrote when he was a fourth grader in St. Louis, Missouri, in 2008 to his Instagram story that included a prediction on his Olympic future. The essay tasked the fourth graders with predicting where they would be 20 years later, in 2028.
“I will play for the USA Olympics Basketball Team,” Tatum wrote. ” … I will be the first person from St. Louis, Mo., to play for the USA Olympics Basketball Team.”
Tatum is actually playing on Team USA for the second time at the 2024 Paris Olympics after helping lead his country to an Olympic gold medal in 2020, when he was the second-leading scorer on the team at 15.2 points per game. He’s also coming off his first NBA championship with the Celtics in 2024.
What Else Did Tatum Predict in the Fourth Grade?
While Tatum got his college and NBA destinations wrong, he did get a few other things eerily right considering he’s only 26 years old and still has four years to make some of his predictions come true.
Tatum predicted he would go to Ohio State — he ended up playing one season for Duke. He predicted he would play for the Phoenix Suns then get traded to the Los Angeles Lakers. Tatum seems destined to play his entire career for the Celtics, where he signed an incredible 5-year, $314 million contract extension with the Celtics in July 2024.
Tatum’s new contract will pay him $71.4 million in 2028-2029 and bring his total career earnings to $469.4 million.
Aside from calling his shot on the Olympics, Tatum nailed one thing that’s already happened.
“When I’m thirty, I would have gone to the NBA at age 19,” Tatum wrote in 2008.
Tatum was drafted No. 3 overall in the 2017 NBA draft … when he was 19 years old.
“I will play basketball for a living as it will be my dream come true,” Tatum wrote in 2008. “I will be nervous at first but I will get used to it as the crowd will cheer me on … I will have won three championships.”
Tatum made the NBA Finals with the Celtics for the first time in 2022, losing to the Golden State Warriors. He won the title for the first time in 2024 by defeating the Dallas Mavericks. That gives Tatum another four years to win two titles and make his fourth-grade prediction of three titles come true.
Team USA Features Stacked Lineup of NBA Stars
Team USA has already won exhibition games against Canada and Australia and has two more exhibitions on the schedule ahead of the Olympics; July 20 against South Sudan in London and July 22 against Germany in London.
Tatum is one of five players on the 2024 roster who return from the gold-medal winning team in 2020 alongside Phoenix forward Kevin Durant, Phoenix guard Devin Booker, Miami Heat center Bam Adebayo and Boston Celtics guard Jrue Holiday.
Team USA opens Olympic pool play on July 28 against Serbia followed by games against South Sudan (July 31) and Puerto Rico (Aug. 3).