While the Los Angeles Lakers sit at home and watch, Jayson Tatum is leading the Boston Celtics at 24 years old and has his team up two games to one in the series. The Celtics being up in the NBA Finals is bitter enough for Lakers fans and it is made even worse knowing that Tatum really could have been in the purple and gold.
Tatum was selected with the third overall pick in the 2017 NBA Draft, one pick after the Lakers selected Lonzo Ball. While it seemed to make sense at the time, this was a massive missed opportunity by the Lakers. Not only did they miss out on a potential future MVP but they missed out on a future MVP that wanted to be a Laker.
Tatum recently opened up about the 2017 NBA Draft and how he was disappointed that the Lakers didn’t draft him. The Celtics superstar even went as far as to say “I was so close to a dream come true”. Instead of donning the purple and gold, Tatum may bring a championship to LA’s biggest rival.
Now, would Tatum still be on the Lakers? That is a question that is impossible to answer. He could have been included in the Anthony Davis trade. He may have signed elsewhere if the Lakers couldn’t pay him once he was due for an extension. There are so many what-ifs about the Lakers drafting him that is becomes one of the most fascinating fork in the road moments in recent NBA history.
One thing is for certain, though: The Los Angeles Lakers have not completely missed the Jayson Tatum train.
While it is currently painful to see Tatum leading the Boston Celtics to a potential NBA Championship, the ship has not completely sailed on Tatum accomplishing his dream of being a Laker. In fact, the Lakers can still get a prime version of Tatum.
The fans are just going to have to be patient. There is no chance that the Boston Celtics would ever trade Tatum. It would take quite the self-destruction for the Celtics to even trade him in a few years and even if they shopped him, the Lakers wouldn’t have anything valuable to offer.
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Instead, Los Angeles has to wait until his contract is up. Considering that just about every superstar opts out of the last year of their deal to get paid more, Tatum will be a free agent in the 2025 summer. Three years and one month from now.
At that point in time, the Lakers will be a clean slate. LeBron James will almost undoubtedly be out of the league and Anthony Davis’s contract also expires that offseason. Unless the Lakers really butcher things, they will be in a position to be a free-agent destination, bringing in Tatum and potentially re-signing Davis (or signing another star on the market that offseason).
Yes, the Celtics will be able to pay Tatum more as the team that drafted him but he will still get plenty of money from the Lakers and would get a chance to play for his hometown team and honor his favorite player, Kobe Bryant.
Tatum will only be 27 when that offseason rolls around. That is two years younger than Anthony Davis currently is. The Los Angeles Lakers would be getting an elite, MVP-caliber player for the entirety of his contract if they were to land Tatum and based on his comments, it already feels like they have a good shot of doing so.
The ship on Jayson Tatum has not completely sailed, it is just taking a detour first.