The reigning champion Boston Celtics must certainly be happy that the Los Angeles Lakers passed on drafting Boston’s eventual best player, four-time All-NBA power forward Jayson Tatum, in 2017.
But how it all went down has been a matter of some dispute in recent days.
While appearing on one-time Celtics teammate Jeff Teague’s podcast “Club 520,” Tatum claimed that, though he was top draft prospect coming out of Duke, Los Angeles never even worked him out. The Lakers had the No. 2 overall pick. Tatum eventually was taken third, when the Celtics swapped picks with the Philadelphia 76ers. The Sixers selected Washington point guard Markelle Fultz with the No. 1 pick they landed from Boston. Fultz has struggled with health issues and is currently an unrestricted free agent as of this writing.
“For me, I grew up a Kobe fan,” Tatum told Teague. “I always wanted to play for the Lakers. For them to have the No. 2 pick and it was like it wasn’t even a thought that I was going to get drafted, that was kind of devastating so I never worked out for the Lakers. They never came to watch me work out.”
Former Los Angeles Lakers team president Magic Johnson, who was in charge of the club’s roster decisions at the time of that draft, chose to respond to Tatum’s claim on SiriusXM show “NBA Today,” hosted by Eddie Johnson and Justin Termine.
[Jayson Tatum’s] agent didn’t want him to work out for [the Lakers]…because we already had too many forwards
Magic Johnson, Lakers Pres. of Basketball Operations (Feb. 2017–Apr. 2019), tells @JumpShot8 and @TermineRadio why LA didn’t draft Jayson Tatum with the 2nd overall pick pic.twitter.com/SYQjOF3854
— SiriusXM NBA Radio (@SiriusXMNBA) December 17, 2024
“I wanted to address something because I didn’t want us to go without addressing what Jayson Tatum said,” Johnson said, “when he said that he was… upset that the Lakers didn’t, I think, draft him or take a look at him. No, we took a look at him. I was the president. But the problem was, Eddie, we were top-heavy in forwards. I couldn’t take him, because we had Brandon Ingram — who was only in his second year — Julius Randle, Larry Nance Jr. So I had, already, too many forwards.”
“[There were] already problems because they all wanted to play,” Johnson said. “We wouldn’t ever see this Tatum if he had ended up with the Lakers, because he would’ve been sitting on that bench. Because we already had Julius and Brandon Ingram starting…. We needed a point guard at that time, and that’s why we took Lonzo Ball. And we didn’t need the locker room to have problems with another young forward.”
On Tuesday, Tatum’s agent Jeff Wechsler tried to clear the air.
Wechsler spoke with former champion Celtics forward-turned-commentator Brian Scalabrine and longtime pundit Frank Isola on their Sirius XM show “The Starting Lineup,” and explained the timeline of Tatum’s pre-draft process.
Jayson Tatum's agent, Jeff Wechsler, joined @TheFrankIsola and @Scalabrine today and responded to Magic Johnson's comments https://t.co/sfPZFVXMga pic.twitter.com/WgWzHHyuJb
— SiriusXM NBA Radio (@SiriusXMNBA) December 17, 2024
“Magic’s correct in what he said, but the way it was presented was a little different,” Wechsler said. “Jayson worked out in L.A. for months, training with Drew Hanlen there. And the Lakers knew that he was in L.A. and never called. In late June, they called and wanted to bring him in for a workout. But by that time, everyone knew that they were taking Lonzo Ball. So when Rob Pelinka called me and asked if they could work Jayson out, I said, ‘Well, if you’re not going to take him, why are you working him out?’ And so I said, ‘Get me on a call with Magic, and we’ll talk about it.'”
“So he set that up a few days later,” Wechsler noted. He told Johnson on the call, “Magic, everyone knows you’re taking Lonzo Ball.”
Johnson didn’t exactly deny that the Lakers intended to select the former UCLA point guard, a native of nearby Chino Hills. Ball eventually became a solid 3-and-D point guard on the New Orleans Pelicans, where L.A. traded him after just two seasons. A left knee meniscus tear kept him on the shelf for two-and-a-half seasons with the Chicago Bulls, and threw a wrench in a successful, though hardly All-Star, career.
“He goes, ‘Yeah, well we’re really heavy at [the] forward position, and we need to take a point guard, and so that’s probably who we’re going to take,’ he says, ‘but we’d like to take a look at everybody,'” Wechsler added. “And I’m like, ‘Well, if you’re not going to take my guy, he’s been out there all summer, he’s now in St. Louis, he’s working out for other teams, I’m not going to fly him back across the country for a workout when you guys aren’t going to take him.’ And that’s how it went down.”
