‘That’s monster’: Why Jayson Tatum has Kendrick Perkins’s vote for MVP
Tatum is likely a long shot to win the award, but he's receiving support from one notable voter.
Jayson Tatum has the support of at least one former Celtics player in the MVP race.
Kendrick Perkins has the current Celtics star as his MVP frontrunner as the season enters the All-Star break.
“Oh, I’m voting for Jayson Tatum,” Perkins, who has an MVP vote, told NBC Sports Boston’s Chris Forsberg. “If the season stopped today, and this is my criteria: the best player with the best record. He’s doing that. … [He has the best record] by far. People don’t realize the sacrifices that Tatum had to do.
As the NBA hits pause on the regular season for a week, the Celtics are ahead of the pack in both the Eastern Conference standings and for the best record in the league. At 43-12, the Celtics are six games ahead of the Cavaliers for the No. 1 seed in the East and four games ahead of the Timberwolves for the league’s best record.
The Celtics’ record and overall dominance this season seem to be the best case for why Tatum should win the MVP. While he’s averaging strong numbers again this season (27.1 points, 8.6 rebounds, and 4.8 assists per game), Tatum’s stat line falls short of some of the other MVP candidates. He’s scoring fewer points per game than Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (31.1), Giannis Antetokounmpo (30.8), and Luka Doncic (34.2). All three of those players, plus Nikola Jokic, are averaging more assists per game as well.
But Perkins believes Tatum has been just dominant enough to win the award.
“Right now, he’s averaging right around 27 points a game, eight and a half rebounds. That’s monster,” Perkins said. “And, he’s shooting 55 percent or close to that as far as his 2-point field goal percentage.”
Tatum’s 2-point field goal percentage is actually slightly better than that at 56.1 percent, which is one of the higher marks in the league for a wing player. Additionally, Tatum leads the league in plus/minus at +564.
But Tatum likely has an uphill battle to climb in order to win the award. He holds the fifth-best betting odds on DraftKings Sportsbook, but at +3000 odds, he’s considered more of a long shot to win it. Tatum was sixth in ESPN’s MVP straw poll released Tuesday, in which 100 media members who are believed to have MVP votes shared how they would vote for the award at the current point of this season. He didn’t receive a single first-place vote.
Tatum, who has been known to play better as the season has gone along, has put up slightly better numbers so far in February. He’s scoring 28.4 points per game while adding 9.3 rebounds and 6.9 assists per game as he’s shot 48.6 percent from the field and 36.2 percent from deep. As a result, the Celtics have gone 6-1 so far in the month.
It obviously remains to be whether posting that kind of a stat line as the Celtics continue to win more games than the rest of the league will push Tatum to the top of the MVP voting. But simply being the best player on the best team might not be enough as a player from the league’s best team in the regular season hasn’t won the award since Antetokounmpo in 2019-20.
But that’s enough for Perkins to give Tatum his MVP vote.
“Look, if the Celtics finish with the No. 1 seed overall, the best record in the league, which I believe they will, Tatum is getting my vote,” Perkins said.
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