Jayson Tatum is a CHAMPION, you can’t take that away! – Stephen A. on silencing the critics | Get Up

Jayson Tatum is a CHAMPION, you can’t take that away! – Stephen A. on silencing the critics | Get Up

[Music] we are back on get up and our next game from the NBA is called either or hey Udonis Haslam was this Celtic playoff run dominant or was it fortunate which was those dominant you got to you got to give credit what credits do the numbers speak for themselves the way they were able to go through um losing one game early on and losing one game against Dallas uh you can’t take anything away from what they’re able to do and the way they dominated through the regular season as well the 20o wins and all those numbers you brought up I’m still in all what they’ be able to do in the regular season so n dominant validation I like it hey Zack low are the Celtics closer to being one and done or being a dynasty I think every team in the NBA that wins the championship right now in this environment is closer to being one and done than being a dynasty that doesn’t mean they can’t do it I want them to chase the repeat hard stated as their goal lean into it but I guess I have to go one and done but Circle that one I I want to come back to that actually um R our producer today I want to come back to that CU I think there’s another interesting question that that sort of brings but UD let me come back to you then so who’s the best player on this team is it brown or is it Tatum this is the one I hate this is the one I hate this as a guy who was just recently in the NBA locker rooms and you win a championship it really doesn’t matter but if I have to pick I’m going to say the best player is Tatum the best player is T just Jason Tatum hands down but the alpha of that team and there’s levels to being an alpha I think is Jaylen Brown the way he accepted the match up to guard Luca not stop LCA but pick him up 94 ft put himself out there and be vulnerable but Jason tat is the best player only few guys that have finished the series 30 and 10 he’s one of them so you talk about MJ you talk about Steph you talk about uh you know Walt Frasier and these guys so there’s only three few guys that have been able to do that so he’s put himself in a leite company he is the best player in that’s right and and so look I think that this is interesting because we’ve seen how defensive the Celtics have been a lot of their comments talking about their critics talking about all the noise that they’ve heard Jason Tatum had this tweet yesterday and I know it’s become sort of the fashionable thing to say when you win a championship what are they going to say now but there was a TW that was put up when uh of all the different accomplishments of this team including him personally and he tweeted what are they going to say now I guess the question is was there ever real criticism of him and if so was it ever legitimate Zach I think there was real criticism which sounds a little bit ridiculous because he’s been First Team all NBA three years in a row which means he’s been considered one of the Five Guys worthy of that honor I think people really nitpicked him too much for one series and it was the 20 22 finals against the Warriors where he just wasn’t good enough as a 24y old in the finals and they’ve looked at that series and they completely forgot that this dude saved Boston’s season in that same year on the road in Milwaukee 46 points in a back to the- wall game six an alltime great elimination game for the Boston freaking Celtics and then last season 51 points in game seven against the Sixers he bizarrely got not enough credit for those games people questioned his sort of intangibles can he take a team across the Finish Line this and that he had already proven that at least to me and I think some of the criticism in that sense was a little bit unfair maybe some of the rest of it I want to get Dominique in this as well but UD without disrespecting the Miami Heat team that I know you know remains so near and dear to your heart I mean last year that’s a series that most people do not believe the Celtics should have lost the heat were a playin team they had the Celtics had homecourt advantage and and were heavily favored to win wound up falling down love three then lost game seven at home he’s the best player on that team there was criticism that came from that as well yeah yeah most definitely and this is where this year we get to see the growth and the maturation of Jason Tatum because our Focus was to make the game physical frustrate him make it more about the refs and more about everything else besides the basketball game and he was able to fall for that Jason tatman does not fall for that anymore it’s about basketball it’s about winning it’s not personal it’s not about anything else but that the refs can’t help you and they can’t hurt you and he’s figured that out now the elite competition I’m Excuse me the elite level that he’s playing at and the work the places that he’s putting himself I just said he’s in the conversations with Jordan he’s in the conversations with W Frasier he’s in the conversations with Steph the way he finished out that series he’s put himself in those things so I don’t say I don’t say those I think the expectations are unrealistic here are the names that you were talking about it’s Frasier look at that big game James look at that 30 and 10 and clinching the series wins so when you put yourself in this conversation with these guys and these players how how can you say say that you know that that that the things that he has are not you know earned Nique you’re in here with me two three days a week throughout the entire football season and I feel like in football there’s a lot of this for guys who haven’t won a championship yet there’s a lot of this for Josh Allen there’s a lot of this for Dak Prescott there’s a lot of this for players who are obviously terrific but until they get over the top until we see them at the very end holding up the most important trophy there are always those questions and always that criticism so does that end now in your opinion for Jason Tatum I mean I think there’s a difference between should it in and does it in I think it probably should end but I don’t think it does end in part because of the names that Udonis was just naming like he’s put himself in that company so he’s going to be compared to them like the criticism of LeBron James still hasn’t stopped people are still comparing him to Jordan and how many championships he has so Jason Tatum is in that class as far as being a top player on a team that is kind of set up to be a dynasty whether they become one or not so right now that’s there the criticism is going to be him getting those next trophies and I think it’s kind of ironic that he did the what they’re going to say now because Steph was obviously it seemed responding to people saying that he had never won a Finals MVP and that was kind of the last thing that anyone could hold over his head Jason Tatum hasn’t done that yet so to be clear I’m not saying that he needs to but I am saying that people are going to expect that from him there’s going to be one more mountain for him to climb and I think it’s going to be League MVP it’s going to be Finals MVP it’s going to be the next measuring stick for Jason Tatum first of all anyone who was holding the lack of a Finals MVP over Stephen Curry’s head was doing basketball wrong there was no way to hold that over Stephen Curry’s head and look I’ll say it again Jason Tatum to ud’s point Nick’s point about the conversations he’s in now the standards he’s met for himself and made for himself they go back to the finals Conference finals next year and he shoots 35% in the series and goes 0 for eight and a four quarter by all means he’s going to be subject to the same criticism that LeBron would get if he did that that Luca would get if he did that but make the criticism about the performance the criticism about what’s in his guts what’s in his soul what the intangibles are that’s over he’s a champion now forever the reason that I want the dog here cuz without knowing it he taught me how to have these kind of conversations so the Boston Celtics get their 18th championship this week edging past the Lakers to once again have the outright claim of most NBA titles if you think that doesn’t matter then you haven’t asked people from the Boston Celtics or the Los Angeles Lakers on paper now you would figure Boston’s a step ahead Stephen A doesn’t see it that way the Boston Celtics have 23 NBA Finals appearances the Los Angeles Lakers have 32 so yes you do have one more ring that is fair but the Los Angeles Lakers have nine more finals appearances which means that although they have one less title their time spent in relevancy is significantly more than yours that would make you the better overall franchise I would say that the Los Angeles Lakers is still the best franchise in NBA annals okay so it’s a fascinating debate and as I mentioned if you think this doesn’t matter to these guys then you didn’t see Magic Johnson tweeting moments after the confetti was still midair in Boston and he was not tweeting congratulations he was tweeting very simply I hate that the Celtics officially have more championships than us now so here’s how I want to frame this conversation dog in the other three major North American Sports it’s pretty clear-cut who the preeminent franchise is it’s the Yankees It’s the Canadians it’s the Packers they overwhelmingly have dominated in terms of championships all time Boston and La have dominated this thing together as a tandem they’ve won 35 championships between us in a league that only goes back to the late 1940s in your opinion which is the preeminent franchise in the NBA to me it’s not even arguable it’s the Celtics I mean four of those championships for the Lakers came in Minneapolis yes so now we’re going to count George mikin as an LA Laker that’s a different franchise to find out loud they won four titles so they got 13 in La they don’t got 17 they have 13 that’s the first thing second thing is Celtics are 7 and3 against them in the final it’s seven and three that’s got to count for something does it not yes and then third thing think of the Lakers that near run it’s magic Kim and it’s Kobe the Celtics it’s Kian and Russell then it’s Russell then it’s hav and cins they won twice right then after that it’s bird he won three times then it’s Pierce he won one title and now it’s Tatum so you have five or six different eras of Celtic greatness while if you really wanted to be difficult about it you got a couple of years of two or three great players magic Kareem they won to five right and then you obviously have KOB and gasal but it’s still Kobe right that’s another five so you got to keep now the Lakers you got Russell Koozie then you got hav cow then you got bird and Mel then you got Pierce in that crew and now you got Tatum those are four different eras of Celtics and you got Mike how does Mike count he was in the Minneapolis Lakers in the 1950s that should not be part of the equation 1713 now you go for those who don’t know why the LA team is called the Lakers despite the fact that there was no Lake anywhere near Los Angeles is because they they were formed as the Minneapolis Lakers the push back on this there a couple of them Stephen A gave you one they’ve been to a lot more finals so they’ve been good a lot more times than the Celtics have been the other is they have more MVPs they’ve had more historical greats I know the Celtics always beat him but they had West and they had Baylor and they had Wilt when they had him and over the course of time magic and Kore and all the other stars on those teams worthy Etc and then they had that little mini error that Boston didn’t have with Shaq and Kobe two alltime great and League MVP types that would feel to me like a pretty good push back for La yeah I that’s a fair point like the MVP argument uh you know West never won an MVP but he and Baylor was there too I get all them that caliber player that caliber player but 7 to3 18-13 and the periods of dominance I I don’t know how you even argue it to me what do you think Zach well if we’re going to hit the Lakers for the Minneapolis thing I do think we have to say a disproportionate amount of the Celtics titles are 50s and 60s when the league was much smaller and you didn’t have to win as many playoff rounds to get there and the talent level wasn’t the same look the story is not who’s the better franchise it’s the gap between them and everybody else if Ste to to Stephen A’s point that sha Kobe era when the Lakers were awesome and the Celtics were not that’s really what’s separating the two teams right now in terms of the time they spent toward the top of the league and if we look back four 5 years from now that could change that that could narrow because the Celtics aren’t going anywhere and the Lakers have a lot of questions there so that so that argument could be a lot more even or Celtics see in a half decade well that was one of the points Jay will made here yesterday we barely got to touch on this because we were right in the aftermath of the game but if you sort of juxtapose where these franchises are right now the Celtics with two stars in their Prime and seemingly going like this and the Lakers with two stars clearly much closer to the end of the greatness of their career and the huge question mark surrounding their coaching situation and everything else it does feel right now huge Advantage Celtics oh definitely huge Advantage Celtics but if I go overall I got to go with what have you done for me lately mhm I’m 44 years old I was born in 1980 proud to say I’m the youngest person at this table I never I never get to say that so I only know what I saw and what I saw is 11 to5 11 championship for the Lakers five for the Celtics this is about to get even more interesting Stephen A Smith has made his way into the A and sit back oh I have a microphone for him actually here hello Stephen A wait let me give you this do I’m not made up with nothing but it don’t but you look terrific it’s okay how you doing you were born you were born camera ready oh they got that is a good well I miss this Stephen A has been so many other places besides New York I never get this walk on anymore it it’s nice have you back I miss you so I had to do it and then I got my man doggy dog in the house look at you see that eonis he looks good brother right there yeah it looks good no TI No TI I’m sorry I didn’t know you were going to be here you look good you look good now Wendy I told him he ping the tie now he look like he running for office I don’t know what’s up with him let me ask you let me ask you the one question of the day we’ve been debating this but if there’s one take I want from you and get everybody ready for First Take in 21 minutes has Jason Tatum finally and forever answered his critics is there is is the criticism the questioning of Tatum and his greatness and everything else now something of the past and never to be done again well listen you can never say never to be done again because it’s all about what have you done for me lately that’s why we love Janet Jackson still it’s all about what have you done for me lately but he’s a champion and you can never take that away from him and he showed up in the finals you can’t take that away from him as well he’s a terrific fantastic player recording 30 and 10 in the NBA Finals game no Celtic in history has ever done that none of none of the names you’d come up so you got to take that into consideration as well he could have easily gotten the MVP award it’s just that Jaylen Brown was a model of consistency from game one through the finals but he showed up in gamees three and game five and you got to give credit where credit is due so the respect is there he’s a champion we got a mad love for him but like he said you got to do it again next year [Music]

On Get Up, Udonis Haslem, Zach Lowe and Domonique Foxworth discuss Jayson Tatum’s performance in the NBA Finals and react to Tatum silencing his critics. Then, the panel is joined by Chris Russo and Stephen A. Smith to debate if the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers are going in opposite directions.

0:00 Either – or segment
3:00 Did Jayson Tatum silence the critics?
8:00 Are the Celtics and Lakers going in opposite directions?
12:30 Stephen A. joins the show!
13:00 Are the Celtics the superior franchise?

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