Jayson Tatum was already a proven winner before last season.
In Tatum’s first six seasons, no NBA player won more games with a team than him. Tatum played in 334 wins with the Boston Celtics during that period, including the playoffs. He was a five-time All-Star, a legitimate MVP candidate, a four-time All-NBA selection and even an Olympic gold medalist.
He just wasn’t a champion.
“I had to listen to everything people said about me,” Tatum said.
All that is now a thing of the past. The Celtics are champions, coach Joe Mazzulla is guiding them to that crown, and when the season begins Tuesday night in Boston, where last season ended, Tatum doesn’t appear to consider it the start of a title defense. He sees it as the start of a run for a 19th title, and according to BetMGM Sportsbook, the Celtics are the favorites to claim the 2025 championship.
“It was never just about trying to win one,” said Tatum, who added a second Olympic gold to his collection this summer. “Now you can be mentioned along with other great teams and great Celtics players, at least be in the same room. All the guys I looked up to growing up won at least one championship. Now it’s just a conversation of, ‘How big are you trying to be? In what room or at what level are you trying to be mentioned when all is said and done?’”
That journey begins with Ring Night in Boston, where the Celtics face New York in the first game of a doubleheader to formally open the league’s 79th season. The closing game will be Minnesota against the Los Angeles Lakers, in which LeBron James will tie Vince Carter in his 22nd season in the NBA, and potentially the first official game in which a father and son are teammates , as Bronny James enters his rookie season.
There will be many rivals who can make Boston repeat the victory. New York (with the addition of Mikal Bridges and Karl-Anthony Towns) and Philadelphia (with the addition of Paul George) prepared to try to supplant Boston at the top of the Eastern Conference. And there are also teams on the rise in the East, like the Paolo Banchero-led Orlando Magic and the Donovan Mitchell-led Cleveland Cavaliers, who reached the second round of the playoffs last season.
“We have to keep stepping on the accelerator,” Mitchell said. “We have to move forward.”
And the Western Conference also has several contenders.
BetMGM has Oklahoma City (the No. 1 seed in the West last season, led by MVP hopeful Shai Gilgeous-Alexander) as the narrow favorite to win that side of the league, with 2023 NBA champion Denver, reigning Western champion Dallas and a Minnesota team that went to the Western finals a season ago all in the mix.
“You have to be careful with the expectations you put on the results,” Thunder forward Chet Holmgren said. “Here we really emphasize putting expectations on the processes, on how we show up every day, on how we do our work, on what we do and the attention to detail with which we do it. “That’s what we really focus on.”
Golden State’s Stephen Curry helped the United States win Olympic gold this summer; the Warriors can never be counted out. And with James, neither do the Lakers.
