Jayson Tatum is walking into Celtics training camp with a label he’s never worn before: the longest-tenured player on the roster.
That’s the shift created by Boston’s offseason trade of Jaylen Brown to the Philadelphia 76ers, a move that leaves Tatum alone at the top of the team’s tenure ladder heading into the 2026-27 season. For the first time in his Celtics career, he’s the guy who has been in Boston longer than everyone else.
It’s a notable turn for a player who has spent his entire run alongside someone with more time in green. When Boston drafted Tatum, Marcus Smart was already the club’s longest-tenured Celtic.
Smart held that spot through the 2022-23 season before being traded to the Memphis Grizzlies. After that, Brown inherited the distinction.
Boston took Brown with the No. 3 pick in the 2016 NBA Draft, one year before Tatum came aboard.
Now the hierarchy is different. Tatum enters his 10th season with the Celtics, and with Brown in Philadelphia, there’s no ambiguity about who Boston is built around.
“Tatum will look to build upon the progress he made during his abbreviated 2025-26 campaign,” writes Celtics insider Taylor Snow. “His combination of scoring, playmaking, rebounding, defense, and leadership will once again be central to Boston’s success.”
Tatum still won’t be the oldest voice in the room. That belongs to Mike Conley, a 20-year veteran who brings plenty of experience to the locker room. But age and tenure don’t always travel together, and in this case the distinction belongs to Tatum.
The rest of the roster’s seniority trail behind him. Payton Pritchard joined the Celtics in 2020, Sam Hauser arrived in 2021, and Derrick White came aboard in 2022.
For Tatum, though, the bigger change is simple: for the first time, he’s the Celtic who’s been around the longest.
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Paul George Just Got The Perfect Celtics Bulletin Board Material
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The case against the number is straightforward enough: George has shown in the playoffs that he still has the skill set and the shot-making to tilt a series, and the argument is that he remains capable of playing at an All-Star level. Whether that becomes motivation or just another talking point is the unresolved part, but for Boston and everyone else in the East, a player of Georges caliber being treated like a mid-tier name is the kind of bulletin-board material that tends to travel well. [Read more 🡒]