Is Jayson Tatum READY For a Leadership Role?

Celtics, like I said, back in the swing of things.

We'll start with Jason Tatum.

And Gary, feel free to take the lead on this because we know you were on the ground for the entire day.

But a lot of the talk was about surrounding his leadership and what this season is going to look like.

From your perspective, both of you, of course, what do you think that leadership will look like this season? And what do you think may need to change now that it's, in theory, his team? If not his team, I guess it is his team.

Oh, it is.

But I think the first thing that has to change is just his approach to the season has to change.

I mean, he has to.

I know he was asked about that on media day and he had like it seemed like a 20 second time out after the question to think about it.

And then he responded.

And the thing is this, it has to change.

And the sooner he embraces that it has to change, and he's going to have to be the catalyst of that change, the sooner he can figure out what that leadership is going to actually look and feel and taste like for himself and for those around him.

But make no mistake about it, though.

He can't be Jason Tatum from last year or the year before or anything like that.

He has to be a newer, better, frankly, a more leadership driven version of Jason Zeta because he doesn't have the benefit of having someone whose presence is going to automatically have the kind of impact that he does.

And I know Paul George is an OG and he's been around, but Paul George isn't on that same stratosphere as far as really good player that people look up to.

Paul George is more kind of like, like that cool uncle at the barbecue who ain't quite on the same, he's not doing it the way that young folks are doing it, but he's not really like, oh, oh gee, he's kind of in the middle somewhere.

And that's fine.

But you cannot be on the same leadership level as like a Jason Tatum if you're like an older version of Jason Tatum.

It's just not going to work, particularly if you're new to the team.

So Tatum has to figure out what exactly does his leadership look like, knowing that it can't be what he did last year.

And I think the sooner he embraces that, the better off he and his self is going to be in figuring this thing out.

Well, I think the leadership has already started with Jason calling everybody to meet in LA for those early pre-train camp workouts.

I think Jason is in a, it's not a easy thing because You want to be more vocal.

You want to be an outward leader.