Jayson Tatum on his record-setting NBA All-Star game performance: ‘It means the world’

Even though it was a game that featured little in the way of defense from either team, Jayson Tatum was lights-out at the 2023 NBA All-Star game, scoring a record-setting 55 points — the most ever scored in an NBA All-Star game, which helped Team Giannis, which was headed by newly-designated Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla to an 184-175 win over Team LeBron on Sunday night at the Vivint Arena in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Tatum’s record-setting 55-point-game came on 22 of 31 shooting, including 10/18 from three-point-land. Tatum wasn’t content to just score either, filling the stat sheet by grabbing a team-high ten rebounds, as well as dishing six assists in addition to a steal and a block.

After defeating Team LeBron, whose leading scorer was Celtics teammate Jaylen Brown with 35 points, Tatum said of his record-setting NBA All-Star game performance, “It means the world. You think of all the legends and great players that’s played in this game, and in all honesty, records are meant to be broken, so I’ll hold it for as long as I can, but I’m certain somebody will come along in a couple years and try to break it.”

Of securing the Kobe Bryant award, which is awarded to the All-Star Game’s MVP, Tatum, the first Celtic to win the All-Star Game MVP award since Larry Bird in 1982, said, “It’s extremely special for me. My first All-Star Game was in Chicago in 2020 when they renamed the MVP after him, and I remember telling myself that day, ‘I’ve got to get one of those before I get done.’ And to be able to wear my signature shoe today, and (to) break the record, and take home this award of somebody that I idolized, it’s a helluva day.”

The signature shoe of which Tatum spoke was his first-ever signature sneaker, the Jordan Tatum 1’s, whose debut couldn’t have come on a much better night. The Jordan Tatum 1’s are slated to release in the summer of 2023 for a retail price of $120 for a men’s pair.

Tatum, whose 25th birthday falls on March 3rd, acknowledged that while he’s still young, he’s no longer a kid and that he’ll do his best to balance the line between growing as a player and staving off complacency with the achievements that have come and will continue to come in his already impressive tenure in the NBA.

“I guess I’m not 19 anymore,” Tatum added. “But yeah, I say it all the time. I’m extremely grateful and blessed to be in this situation. I’m not too far removed from being a kid in St. Louis with essentially a ball and a dream and dreaming about these moments of being here. And living out that dream, in reality, is hard to describe. I try not to really think about the things I’ve accomplished. I never want to get complacent. I’m always chasing something, chasing more.”

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