Forsberg: Forget Kyrie, Tatum and Durant take center stage in Celtics-Nets originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
I think how you earn the respect of people that you look up to is you’ve got to compete against them. You got to go at them for them to give you that respect that you looking for.”
That was Jayson Tatum back in October, still basking in the glow of his gold-medal summer, reflecting on what it was like to hear Kevin Durant repeatedly sing his praises.
Durant repeatedly gushed about Tatum in the aftermath of the Celtics-Nets playoff series, the one in which Tatum produced a 50-point night in Boston’s only postseason win. Durant joked how he hated that the two players were in the same conference and punctuated his praise by noting, “[Tatum is] that elite level of a player already at 23 and I can see where this is going. It was an honor to play against him.”
Later in the summer, Durant openly wondered when Tatum might pass him as Team USA’s all-time leading scorer…