Jayson Tatum has led the Boston Celtics to the NBA Finals. He has been crucial in getting them past some extremely tough teams in the Milwaukee Bucks and the Miami Heat, and he could potentially get the Boston Celtics their first championship since the 2008 season.
This season has obviously gone well for the Boston Celtics. The same cannot be said for their rivals, the Los Angeles Lakers. They notably missed the playoffs, despite having a big 3 of Russell Westbrook, Anthony Davis, and LeBron James on their roster.
The Los Angeles Lakers notably could have selected Jayson Tatum with the No. 2 pick in the 2017 NBA Draft, but they went with point guard Lonzo Ball instead. Recently, Jayson Tatum opened up on what it was like to miss out on his “dream” of playing for his “favorite team” at the time. Ramona Shelburne and Elizabeth Merrill of ESPN relayed the news:
The Celtics had the No. 1 pick, but traded down with Philadelphia, which used the pick to select University of Washington guard Markelle Fultz. The Lakers sat at No. 2 and were fixated on UCLA point guard Lonzo Ball. They didn’t even bring Tatum in for a workout. The reasons for these decisions are painful to revisit for those who made them, and somewhat lost to history because the principals — Bryan Colangelo (Philadelphia) and Magic Johnson (Lakers) — are no longer in their roles.
Tatum saw them as slights and used them as motivation.
Tatum saw them as slights and used them as motivation.”The Lakers were my favorite team, and Kobe was my favorite player,” says Tatum, who wore a purple No. 24 wristband to honor Bryant in Boston’s win against the Miami Heat in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals. “So it was crazy that the Lakers had the second pick, and I was so close to a dream come true. But it was just like they didn’t want anything to do with me at the time.”
There is no doubt that it is unfortunate that Jayson Tatum didn’t get to play for the Lakers, like his favorite player, Kobe Bryant. In fact, Kobe Bryant himself was a big fan of Jayson Tatum. But things have clearly worked out for Tatum career-wise: he is the No. 1 player on a Finals team, and he has a chance to win his first championship.
The Los Angeles Lakers did manage to win the title in 2020 though, even if they didn’t draft Jayson Tatum in 2017. However, some people will always wonder what would have happened if Jayson Tatum was on the Los Angeles Lakers, rather than the Boston Celtics.
