James, the great player for the Los Angeles Lakers, is retiring, and Boston Celtics small forward Jayson Tatum wants to take his place as the NBA’s new star. 

“I feel like it’s mine to take,” Tatum told The Athletic’s Jared Weiss. “I do think that if we win a championship, it will stand out more.” but I know for sure I’m on that short list.”

Tatum is an NBA star. This season, he’s averaged 27.1 points, 8.6 rebounds, 4.8 assists, 1.0 steals, and 0.6 blocks. He also shoots 47.5% from the field, 36.3% from three-point range, and 82.4% from the free throw line.

The Celtics have the best record in the NBA (43-12). Tatum has scored 9 points per game and 517 points in all this season.

“At first, I was just playing the game for fun instead of making a point,” Tatum said. “Now I know who we’re playing against when I go out there.” I know their plan, what they want to do, and which players are in and out of the group. I’ve learned from my mistakes and now know that I’m good enough to take it easy and wait a little while. Then it’s the fourth quarter, and I know I can score 20 points in that one.

Tatum was picked by the Celtics as the third overall pick in the 2017 draft. He was a player at Duke. Tatum has been on five NBA All-Star teams and three NBA All-NBA teams. The Golden State Warriors beat the Celtics in six games in the 2022 Finals, which he led them to. 

Tatum said, “Extremely sad is the best way to describe it.” “I was so close, but I didn’t do what I came up with, and we lost.” Nothing else was important to me at that time besides getting better and getting back to that point.

In his career, Tatum, who is 25, has averaged 23.0 points, 7.2 rebounds, and 3.5 assists per game. He’s almost done with getting into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

The 2024 playoffs will be very interesting to watch to see how far Tatum and the Celtics make it.