The Celtics’ offseason shakeup may have left people arguing about whether Boston is any closer to a title, but it also opened the door for Jayson Tatum to make the strongest MVP push of his career.
That case starts with the simplest thing in the world: opportunity. If Tatum is healthy and ready to go from the jump, and if he gets through a season with 70+ games, the setup around him points toward a massive statistical year.
With Jaylen Brown out of town, the runway is wide open for Tatum to post the highest usage of his career. Everything can run through him now, and that means career-best numbers across the board are well within reach.
A line like 30 points, 10 rebounds, and 7 assists per game? There’s nothing in the way of that idea.
Boston’s roster is built to put him in the center of everything, both as a scorer and as a playmaker. And on top of that, he should still profile as one of the league’s best defenders. That combination alone makes for a serious MVP argument.
The team context helps too. After the Brown trade, the expectation is that Boston will take a step back.
But the roster still looks better than it did at this point a year ago, and with Tatum taking Brown’s place, the Celtics should be a regular-season machine. If they win 55+ games and land a one or two seed in a loaded East, Tatum will be the face of it all.
Then there’s the part of MVP races that never really goes away: the story. Voters may say they ignore it, but they’re human, and narratives matter.
Tatum coming back from his achilles tear, putting together the best season of his career, and carrying Boston to a hugely successful year without a second star? That’s the kind of storyline that sticks.
Brown’s season last year is the clearest proof of concept. When he was basically playing Tatum’s role, he helped the Celtics get to 56 wins and still finished sixth in MVP voting, even with some shaky advanced numbers, efficiency, and defense.
If Brown could get that kind of traction in that spot, Tatum can absolutely match it - and likely do it with better efficiency, better defense, better playmaking, and better rebounding. He’s done that kind of all-around climb every season of his career.
And the competition doesn’t exactly make the road harder. Voter fatigue is already a factor for Nikola Jokic, and it’s coming for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander too.
Victor Wembanyama is the clear favorite, but the expectations on him are enormous, and there’s also the question of how motivated he’ll be to chase the 65-game mark after turning down contract incentives tied to awards. Luka Doncic, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Cade Cunningham are in the mix as well, but each comes with his own complications.
Tatum, by contrast, has the cleanest path. There’s still plenty that can go wrong between now and the end of the season, but in August, it’s hard to find a clearer MVP setup for a player who has already finished in the top six four times.
In Other News...
Celtics Fans May Not Love Brad Stevens Next Move After Brown
Jaylen Browns move to Philadelphia has already forced Boston into a familiar kind of recalibration, and Brad Stevens now has to decide what comes next for a roster that still has Jayson Tatum at the center. The talk around the league is not about replacing Brown with another headline name so much as how the Celtics can keep enough flexibility to stay competitive while avoiding the kind of cap squeeze that can trap a contender for years.
For fans hoping the front office would swing big again, that softer approach may be a tough sell. The current thinking points more toward adding useful players on value contracts and staying aggressive in the trade market without chasing another supermax star, which leaves plenty of room for debate about the direction Stevens chooses and which targets actually fit the path Boston wants to take. [Read more 🡒]
Brad Stevens Still Has One Huge Celtics Question To Answer
Brad Stevens has spent the summer making the kind of hard choices that come with living under the NBAs second apron, and the Celtics reshaped roster shows just how serious Boston is about threading that needle. Moving Jaylen Brown for Paul George and draft assets was not a decision made for comfort, but for flexibility, with the front office trying to stay competitive around Jayson Tatum while also keeping enough room to adjust later.
The next test is whether those moves actually buy Boston the kind of control it wants over the rosters future. The Celtics have also brought in young players and are managing contracts with an eye toward keeping options open, but the path forward still depends on how Stevens handles the timeline around George and the rest of the cap picture. Even after the biggest transaction, the broader question in Boston is still unsettled: how far can this group go now, and how much can it pivot later? [Read more 🡒]
Celtics Dream Target Would Change Everything Around Jayson Tatum
The idea of the Celtics making a splash for a true franchise-changing star always turns heads, and the latest dream scenario puts Stephen Curry and Nikola Joki in the conversation. There have been no confirmed trade talks or offers, but the mere possibility of Boston chasing a player of that caliber says plenty about how the team could try to reshape the roster around Jayson Tatum if the right opening ever appeared.
Joki stands out as the more natural fit in that kind of hypothetical, especially because of the way he changes an offense and eases the burden on everyone around him. He has also signaled a desire to stay in Denver, just as Curry has with Golden State, which keeps this squarely in the realm of speculation for now and makes the next offseason worth watching closely. [Read more 🡒]