Basketball is supposed to be fun. It’s entertainment, meant to carry us away from the pressures of work, bills, and diaper changes. Until it doesn’t.
When I’m watching this iteration of the Celtics, the team that’s now the odds-on favorite to win the championship, I find myself thinking about December 30th, 2016. That date probably means nothing to you on first blush, but it was important to me and probably you, too. Three friends and I hopped in my seafoam green 2009 Chevy Malibu and got on Route 2 in Gardner.
We were heading east, to Alewife station. The excitement bubbling up in us as we took the red line towards The Garden. We were going to watch Isaiah Thomas play basketball.
And boy did we really get to watch Isaiah Thomas play basketball. This was the night he eviscerated the Miami Heat. He went for 52, twenty-nine in the fourth quarter. Twenty. Nine.
By the end of the fourth quarter, I was so hoarse from cheering I sounded like the long-lost triplet of Patty and Selma. That night was pure, unfiltered basketball joy. With 37 seconds left, IT hit an insane 3 to put the game away. As the initial roar faded to a cheerful din, I turned to the 10-year-old kid and his father behind us and just said, “you’ll never see anything like this again.” I was wrong. Until I wasn’t.
Jayson Tatum, on several occasions, has done something just like that. Perhaps most memorably dropping 60 in an absurd comeback against the Spurs. Or when he had 50 against Brooklyn in the playoffs. Or when he had 46 in Milwaukee to save the Celtics’ season. Tatum has had some of the most dominant and memorable games in Celtics history, but one thing’s missing. The joy.
It’s all Tatum’s fault. He’s too good at too young an age for rationality to win out. What he’s done at the age of 25 isn’t normal. Chris Paul is widely regarded as an all-time great; he’s been to two conference finals. Can you imagine how Pelicans fans would talk about Zion if he took the Warriors to seven games in his rookie year? Paul Pierce never made an All-NBA First Team. Tatum has two (assuming he gets it this year).
If there’s an unwritten contract between fans and players, you be successful and we will be behind you 100%, Tatum has held up his end of the bargain so well that it’s warped our expectations. He’s supplied so much…
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