Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum was not named to an All-NBA team this season. He played in 64 of the 72 games last year.
After making the first All-NBA team of his career last season, Tatum was not voted in this year, despite improving across the board. The questionable part of it all is the players who made it over Tatum.
2020-21 All-NBA teams:
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) June 16, 2021
First: Nikola Jokic, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Stephen Curry, Luka Doncic, Kawhi Leonard
Second: Chris Paul, Damian Lillard, Joel Embiid, Julius Randle, LeBron James
Third: Kyrie Irving, Bradley Beal, Rudy Gobert, Jimmy Butler, Paul George
LeBron James made All-NBA Second Team despite only played 45 games this past season. To put that into perspective, Tatum played 88.9% of games while James only played 62.5%.
According to Keith Smith of Yahoo Sports and Spotrac, Tatum missed out on some big money due to not making a team. In total over the course of five years, he would have made $32,600,060 more if he had been voted onto an All-NBA team.
Other players who lost money due to this include Donovan Mitchell, Bam Adebayo, and De’Aaron Fox.
More controversy comes byways of Adam Himmelsbach of the Boston Globe. He explained an odd situation that led to Tatum missing out on the honors.
Interesting twist in the All-NBA voting. Tatum was eligible as a guard and forward and had more votes than Kyrie, who made the third team as a guard. But Tatum was slotted as a forward because that was the position where he received the most votes.
— Adam Himmelsbach (@AdamHimmelsbach) June 16, 2021
Since Tatum received the majority of his votes at the forward position, that is where he was slotted. Therefore, despite the fact that he got more votes than Kyrie Irving, he missed the teams altogether.
Other fans have pointed to Jimmy Butler as the source of confusion, rather than LeBron James. Butler only played 52 games (72.2%), and did not even make the All-Star team.
Butler averaged 21.5 PPG, 6.9 RPG, 7.1 APG, and 2.1 SPG on roughly 50-25-86 shooting splits. Meanwhile, Tatum averaged 26.4 PPG, 7.4 RPG, 4.3 APG, and 1.2 SPG on roughly 46-39-87 shooting splits.
Tatum was named to the second All-Star game of his career last season. He also tied the Boston Celtics franchise record for most points in a single game with 60.
The real crime here is Tatum missing out on that sum of money due to the media not voting him onto an All-NBA team. Keith Smith said it best
"“Media votes should not determine salary amounts for players. It’s crazy that this is the system.”"
It is what it is, though. And it’s a very notable snub.