A lot of people have a cool sports experience from when they were growing up.
For example, when I was in elementary school, my Little League team won some contest where we got a clinic with John Valentin--and other than calling our field a dump and jokingly raising a bat at someone who said they would play for the Yankees, he was a really cool guy. He also complimented my hitting because I could hit alright for a 10-year-old in batting practice (just not in games). That’s the kind of stuff one never forgets. Well, some young basketball fans have an even cooler experience than that they will remember with one Boston Celtics player.
Jayson Tatum made an appearance at a basketball camp on Long Island this week and well, he showed them why he’s in the NBA and they’re just kids.
Tatum let a kid guard him and while the kid looked alright at first, Tatum went for the crossover and let’s just say it didn’t end well for the kid.
.@jaytatum0 out here cooking campers at an appearance we booked on Long Island #Celtics #NBATwitter pic.twitter.com/ztQLxcpq3N
— Thuzio (@Thuzio) August 1, 2018
Just a tad overaggressive for the ball. Nothing too crazy. Tatum exposed this 12-year-old’s weakness and BOOM! He dunked! Amazing!
The lesson of the story here is even if you’re not the best player in the NBA (yet), you can still beat up on 12-year-olds to boost your self esteem as a basketball player. Unfortunately though, this does not work against 14-year-olds as I recently was defeated 21-4 by a group of them in a pickup game of basketball.
Ultimately, it was a rather ruthless move by Tatum but judging by the crowd’s reaction, all of those kids were loving it. And what was Tatum supposed to do? Was he supposed to let the kid score? No chance. Not everyone gets a trophy. Sorry.