After years of dismissive remarks, together with dubbing Jayson Tatum “The Password” for his supposedly forgettable presence, analyst Colin Cowherd has lastly modified his stance.
The shift comes as Tatum continues to silence critics together with his play and, maybe extra importantly, his strategy to the sport.
This week, Cowherd supplied a stunning endorsement of Tatum on his podcast, focusing not simply on statistics however on the ahead’s mentality and work ethic that units him aside in in the present day’s NBA.
“In case your star exhibits up each evening, the remainder of the group falls in line. Neglect load administration, I need lead administration—and Jayson Tatum, he’s that man. I’ve been to 3 or 4 Celtics video games. He’s all the time the primary man on the ground in warmups. Locked in, each ends. He’s not coasting, not pacing himself. He performs—and performs onerous—each single evening. That’s an enormous deal. No, I don’t assume he’s fairly the face of the league but, however he is likely to be the heartbeat. The Celtics’ greatest participant can be their hardest employee,” Cowherd remarked on The Quantity.
Colin calls Tatum the NBA’s ‘heartbeat’ for taking part in onerous each evening whereas others load handle
“He is all the time the primary man on the ground in warmups. Locked in each ends. He isn’t coasting, not pacing himself. He performs and performs onerous each single evening.“
— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) March 30, 2025
The reward comes amid rising considerations about load administration throughout the NBA.
Cowherd factors out that regardless of the league’s efforts, together with the 65-game minimal for award eligibility, star gamers treating regular-season video games as non-obligatory has broken fan curiosity and league attraction.
But in Boston, this development hasn’t taken maintain.
The Celtics have established a tradition the place availability issues, beginning with Tatum.
Whereas resting gamers has change into normal follow elsewhere, Tatum joins a choose group, together with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Anthony Edwards, who strategy enjoying as their default expectation, not a burden to keep away from.
Cowherd means that if the NBA can’t resolve the load administration drawback by means of guidelines, it is likely to be gamers like Tatum who in the end shift the league’s tradition again towards consistency.
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