Jayson Tatum caught Chris Broussard in two minds.
On the one hand, the Boston Celtics forward impressed the FOX Sports analyst with the confidence he demonstrated Sunday in predicting the C’s would win the NBA Finals this season. On the other hand, Broussard believes Tatum showed recklessness with his championship guarantee.
Broussard laid out his likes and dislikes about Tatum’s epic statement Monday on “First Things First.”
“… Boston is capable of winning the Eastern Conference,” Broussard said. “And what I like about Jayson Tatum’s statement is that it shows he’s putting it out there publicly: ‘Look everybody knows about our differences between the young guard and Kyrie (Irving), but that’s not going to stop us from getting where we want to go. I think it exudes that type of confidence and tells everybody ‘look, we can get past this.’
“What I didn’t like is he’s being too definitive for a team that’s not going to win the championship because it’s going to be Golden State. He should have been more like ‘we’re gonna make this run and get into the Finals,’… That would have shown confidence without being too definitive.”
The Celtics last summer were expected to storm through the Eastern Conference en route to the NBA Finals, but the season hasn’t unfolded as many predicted. They currently occupy fourth place in the Eastern Conference standings, but seven wins in 10 games leading up to the All-Star break seems to have stoked optimism about their near-term prospects.
Why Tatum issued such a proclamation remains a mystery. All we can do for now is react and assess, as Broussard has done.
