This is a take I’ve sat on for a while and haven’t been fully sure how to develop it. See, there’s one thing I really hate about players, and that’s when they do something incredibly corny and we all just forget. Russell Wilson got rightfully shamed for being a cornball of a human, but he also embraced it. LeBron is kind of a cornball, but he’s so good that we all just kind of forget (i.e., Taco Tuesday). And he’s a father, so he’s kind of allowed to make that happen. But Jayson Tatum has gotten away with one of the corniest actions of all time. And we’ve let him. So I’ve decided to start that narrative that Jayson Tatum thinks he’s been given Kobe’s blessing to be his second coming.
Some may come to this blog thinking I’m invoking Kobe’s name to shame Tatum. And that is most certainly not the case. I don’t doubt that Kobe liked Jayson Tatum; he probably admired a young guy with a drive to succeed. They even worked out together. This isn’t about Kobe, though. It’s this narrative that Jayson Tatum is working so hard to create. And it all started with this text.
I remember seeing this and thinking it was the lamest shit in the world. I actually rooted heavily for Golden State, after years upon years of unmitigated hate, in the 2022 Finals because I hated this so much. What does “I got you today” even mean in this context? Kobe never played for the Celtics. Kobe never came out and said that Jayson Tatum is my guy and I want him to succeed. There is no world where Kobe is out here needing Tatum to help him out. This is fully a dreamt up scenario created by Jayson Tatum because he is obsessed with being Kobe.
A Media Blitz
I really didn’t think much of this Jayson Tatum-Kobe one-way connection. Sure, like I said, I really hated that whole text message exchange, but I was thankfully unaware of how deep this whole mental game goes. To the point I genuinely wonder if anyone has checked in on the brain of Tatum and checked to make sure he knows he isn’t Kobe. In every article about the Jayson Tatum-Kobe connection, the following story is mentioned ad naseum.
I made the mistake of searching up “Jayson Tatum Kobe” just to see what I could find. And it’s almost like a media blitz of Kobe comparisons. You know how when all of a sudden a celebrity starts making appearances in the media and you know there’s a PR machine behind this? The same principle applies with the Kobe comparisons.
Back in 2022, Slam did a whole profile of Jayson Tatum in the spirit of a Kobe comparison. Of course, the article started off with the same diatribe about how no one can be better than Kobe. Apparently, he even got in arguments with him mom about who was better – MJ or Kobe. (Brandy Tatum has better ball knowledge than her NBA son; Kobe is somewhere in the Top 5-10 of all time, but not 1). The whole article was a puff piece about Tatum and how he’s trying to be like Kobe. It’s annoying, it’s self-congratulatory, and it’s a nonsense line-drawing job, starting this comparison narrative. It is a narrative no one has even tried to make, other than Jayson Tatum himself. This includes the picture he took, trying to emulate Kobe.
What really irked me in my research was a paragraph from a piece by The New Yorker. (Of course, it’s annoying, it’s from The New Yorker). It again does the masturbatory dance of trying to put Jayson Tatum on the same set of train tracks as Kobe Bryant. The second paragraph spins this web showing how Jayson Tatum was shooting horribly, but just kept going because that’s what Kobe would have done. The author even says this is horrible advice, but says that Jayson Tatum actually led the Celtics to victory. I hate this and I hate everything about this. It stems from the Slam narrative that Jayson Tatum believes he is Kobe. Or the second coming of Kobe. Or even some kind of Kobe impersonator.
Some will see this and believe this shows how dedicated Jayson Tatum is. This, instead, shows me how delusional he is.
Jayson Tatum and A Kobe Caricature
Maybe this isn’t the wisest blog to drop right after Jayson kicked his 2024 playoffs campaign into overdrive. Last game he scored 33 points. A Celtics team that doesn’t really need Jayson to be a superstar was granted with his rise to superstaredom. Even First Take guests were ripping Stephen A. for his Jayson Tatum takes. But I want to get this narrative out of the way early, because it’s not all that crazy to put a future on the Celtics winning the Finals right now.
But Jayson Tatum, for all his mental and media Kobe-comparison fanfare, is no Kobe. Sure, he can shoot. I’d be surprised if a guy who made it this far in the NBA wasn’t a natural shooter who can pullup and just be electric on his on and off days. But he also isn’t Kobe. He plays slowly and sluggish at times. He thinks he’s interested in being the guy who can be a floor general, but he isn’t. Every opportunity he gets to actually be Kobe, Tatum acts like a caricature of Kobe created by a 10-year-old boy who saw Kobe working hard and shooting a lot. But in the case of Jayson Tatum, for all the hoopla, the only Kobe comparison that can be made is that he is the Kobe Bryant of comparing himself to Kobe Bryant.
When he wins for the Finals (I don’t come from the Colin Cowherd school of he never will win), he’s going to the do the Kobe pose. I hate everyone who does the Kobe pose. It makes me angry. That is not a happy picture of sheer celebration and triumph as a man reflects on everything he has done. It’s a heartbreaking photo of a man who has achieved his dream, but his parents patently refused to be there to celebrate with him. There is no recreation that actually understands the solemn nature of a man struggling in victory.
And when Jayson Tatum does it I will hate him even more, because he will be excited to do it. And it will further prove to me he is a caricature of Kobe Bryant; a creation of his own mind. He owns the Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends version of Kobe, and he will parade it around for the rest of his time in the NBA.
Please join me in propagating this narrative for the rest of Jayson Tatum’s NBA career.
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