Jayson Tatum laments the demise of 2018-19 Celtics, says they were 'most talented team in the NBA'

Tatum took his share of the blame in a refreshingly reflective interview on the Old Man and the Three podcast

Jayson Tatum recently gave a refreshingly reflective and honest interview on the Old Man and the Three podcast with J.J. Redick and Tommy Alter. Side note: Bookmark this podcast. No matter the guest, it's one of the best. They ask the questions we're all wondering about, and players open up with Redick in a way they don't often do even with former players. 

Tatum covered a number of topics, including lessons he took from playing for Coach K, the burden of early success in the NBA, and dealing with what was, before the Celtics started winning, getting to be a pretty loud chorus of people saying he and Jaylen Brown needed to be broken up. 

The full interview is below. It's a great listen all the way through. 

For me, the portion of the interview that stood out the most came at the 25:30 mark, where Redick asked Tatum about what went wrong with the 2018-19 Celtics, whom Tatum, earlier in the interview, called "the most talented team in the NBA" that season. 

That's quite the statement. In 2018-19, there was this little team called the Warriors with four guys named Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green in their starting lineup. I think I'd give them the talent edge. 

Still, Tatum's point is well taken. That Celtics team was stacked. Kyrie Irving, Tatum, Brown, Gordon Hayward, Al Horford, Marcus Smart, Terry Rozier, Marcus Morris ... I mean come on. On paper, that is a squad. But the games aren't played on paper, and that team just never lived up to the hype, falling short of 50 wins before going out with a whimper in a five-game second-round loss to Milwaukee in the playoffs.

Kyrie, who bailed for Brooklyn that offseason, took, and has continued to take, a lot of the blame for the way that team seemingly came apart from the inside out. There's little doubt that Irving's prickly and moody presence didn't help, and watching him all but give up against the Bucks in the playoffs was pretty disheartening. 

But Tatum admitted to his share of the blame, detailing all the necessary context to fully understand the unraveling, starting with the fact that Tatum and Brown had led the Celtics to Game 7 of the conference finals the previous season with Irving and Hayward out injured. With everyone coming back in 2018-19, you had a bunch of guys who believed in their place atop the hierarchy and never fully figured out how to check their egos and balance things for the betterment of the team. 

"It was a combination," Tatum said of what went wrong. "Kyrie and Gordon coming back. Obviously we know what Ky is capable of, but Gordon was coming off an All-Star the year before and was, and still is, a very, very good player. Then you had myself and JB [Jaylen Brown] and Terry [Rozier], and naturally we wanted more. 

"We were young and we knew what we just accomplished and how close we got [the season before], and we wanted more, we wanted to be the guys," Tatum continued. "Everybody was, I think, a little resistant, instead of [saying]: 'No, we're all playing for the same goal, we're all going to get paid, we're all going to be All-Stars, and I think life would just be better if we win a championship.' 

"And I think everybody played a part in that," Tatum concluded. "I know I did for sure. As bad as I wanted to win, I wanted to be -- alright, we all knew Ky was the best player -- but I wanted to be number two. And I take responsibility for some of those things. But just looking back on it, you know, especially the Warriors not even being full strength in the championship, you can't help but think that could've been us."

Tatum's right. That Celtics team was built to win a championship and the trophy wound up wide open for the taking that season. LeBron was out of the Eastern Conference. Durant basically didn't play in the Finals, and Thompson tore his ACL in Game 6. The Raptors wound up with the ring, and no disrespect to them, but that wasn't an unbeatable team. 

Had the Celtics played up to the peak of their potential, Tatum has every right to believe they would've won the Eastern Conference and faced an injured Warriors team in the Finals. 

Of course, this is neither here nor there in 2022. The past is the past. What's impressive is Tatum's willingness, at still just 25 years old, to hold himself accountable. That kind of introspection, never mind the ability to articulate it so well and the humility to do so with such openness and honesty, is what makes you believe in Tatum as the cornerstone of a franchise. 

It takes a lot of people -- not just athletes, but everyone -- years to take this kind of look in the mirror. Huge props to Tatum for being willing to use his platform to admit his own mistakes rather than to blame others. Tatum surely wasn't the only one to blame for that Celtics teams falling apart, but he didn't point any fingers. He took his share of the blame while also providing full and proper context. That's how it's done.