Jayson Tatum, like a lot of Gen Zers, is big on manifesting. “When I was a kid, I always dreamed really big,” the Boston Celtics star forward tells me. “I wanted to be the best player in the world. I wanted my own shoe. I wanted championships. I would try and speak it into existence. And like, I really believed it. I didn’t hope for it. I believed it would happen.” One of those childhood dreams, he recalls, took shape as he flipped through magazines in his dentist’s waiting room. “I’d see these GQ magazines and they’d have all my favorite athletes and movie stars and I thought, ‘Oh, this is the pinnacle. If you’re in here, this is how you know you’re big time.’”
Of course, Tatum—the man that NBA Twitter calls The Anomaly—was big time long before this GQ interview. Now in his eighth NBA season, the 27-year-old is a six-time All-Star, a three-time All-NBA first team selection, and, as of last June, a one-time NBA champion. Since entering the league in the 2017-18 season, the rangy 6-foot-8 forward’s Celtics have never missed the playoffs—a feat that none of Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, LeBron James, or Kawhi Leonard can lay claim to in that stretch—and they’re currently in the hunt for a second consecutive title, matched up in the first round with the upstart Orlando Magic. “It doesn’t matter who you play,” Tatum says. “Winning in the NBA is hard.”
When I reach Tatum via Zoom, he’s only a few days out from the playoffs. If he’s feeling any serious pressure to repeat, however, it doesn’t show—he’s loose and easy in conversation. Maybe it’s simply because right now, so much seems to be going Tatum’s way. On top of another dominant season—with the Celtics cruising to a 61-21 record, good enough for second in the Eastern Conference—he’s now the face of Coach’s latest cologne, Eau de Parfum for Men.
Tatum has been a Coach ambassador since last summer. The label, he says, fits his personality. “It’s not really a look-at-me brand,” he says, “Like, I’ve always been laid back, yeah? But I enjoy nicer things.” His personal history with the brand stretches all the way back to his childhood, when he received a Coach money clip for his 10th birthday. “I knew then that my parents and grandparents, they all had wallets,” he recalls. “So I remember getting this money clip, and even at that age, it made me [feel] closer to [being] an adult.”
When Tatum gets dressed, it’s always sensible and composed—beyond the occasional pastel-splashed Richard Mille watch. He looks good and stylish, but not in a way that feels desperate to attract @LeagueFits attention. “I’m always just trying to feel comfortable,” he says. “I’ve always found a lot of importance in how I present myself—of how to dress, of making sure you get your hair cut. I used to think about these things all the time in elementary school, in middle school, in high school.”
He admits to trying to follow trends earlier in his career, but as he’s become more at ease in the league, his style has followed. Over time, he took note of the way other players he admired dressed and began—like all great artists and tunnel fit guys—to steal. “You know, I maybe didn’t like the way they dressed from head to toe,” Tatum explains. “But there were certain pieces or certain things that made me go, ‘Oh, I want to steal that.’” When I ask which other NBA player’s wardrobe he would raid, he names Kevin Love so fast that I’m forced to wonder if he’s really considered going Ocean’s Eleven on the Miami Heat center’s Ralph Lauren-filled closet. As with all things in his life, there’s a level of practicality behind Tatum’s answer: “We’re, like, the same size.”
We run through a few of his favorite playoff moments pre-title run, and it’s full of the sort of highlights most players would kill to notch even one of on their resumé. “My first year playing against LeBron and the Cavs was incredible,” he says. “But the playoff run in 2022 was special. We went through Kyrie and KD, the defending champs [the Bucks] in seven, and then we beat the Heat in Game 7 in the Conference Finals.” He chuckles. “And I would say playing against the Sixers in 2023, being down 3-2, and then scoring 51 in Game 7 to go to the Conference Finals.”
Those highs all came before he ever got a ring. That changed last year, when Boston finally put all the pieces together and turned in as dominant a postseason performance as we’ve seen in some time. It’s no surprise that this year—in a season featuring titanic runs by the Oklahoma City Thunder and Cleveland Cavaliers—the Celtics are still the safe money bet for the NBA title.
“Last year really helped me understand the importance of a team,” Tatum says. “The guys in the back, the strength coaches, the security. I have a much higher level of appreciation for everybody and for what it took for us to accomplish something special. I don’t take those things for granted. We’re all bonded for life for what we did last year.”
If there’s another X-factor that Tatum believes shouldn’t be overlooked in assessing the Celtics’ title chances, it’s head coach Joe Mazzulla. “He’s the best coach in the NBA, even though he’ll never admit that,” Tatum says. Mazzulla’s brilliance as a play caller is sometimes overshadowed by his habit of dropping unintentionally hilarious one-liners in interviews, which Tatum admits the locker room gets a kick out of. “We laugh [about it],” he says. “Like, we love to watch his press conferences.” I ask Tatum about his favorite thing Mazzulla has ever said to him. “He always tells me that he loves me,” he shares. “He’ll say it on practice days or in the middle of a game during a timeout. It’ll be the third quarter of a playoff game, a very intense atmosphere, and he’ll say ‘Just want you to know I love you, man.’”
A few days after our call, the Celtics throttle the Magic in the opening game of their series. Anything can happen in the playoffs: maybe the Magic’s young core finds a way around Tatum’s Cs in the games to come; maybe the Celtics become the first NBA team to win back-to-back championships since the Golden State Warriors in 2018. There are no safe bets in the NBA, but Tatum may be the closest thing we have to one. No matter what happens in the next few weeks, he’ll almost certainly be back for more this time next year.
