BOSTON – We’ve seen the Instagram and Twitter pics of Jayson Tatum this summer and there’s no question he has been putting in some serious work in the weight room.
And there's little doubt the added bulk will help him this season.
But Danny Ainge, Boston's president of basketball operations, cautions folks not to get too caught up in thinking the 20-year-old Tatum will just keep getting bigger and bigger in time.
"He's not jacked!" Ainge responded in surprise when co-host Rich Shertenlieb stated matter-of-factly, "By the way, Jayson Tatum's jacked now" during Ainge's weekly interview on 98.5 The Sports Hub's Toucher & Rich Show.
“We don’t want him to bulk up too much,” Ainge said. “Jayson has worked hard in the offseason and is definitely stronger; his hands are stronger.”
Ainge recalled how Tatum as a rookie would lose the ball on drives at times.
“He seems to have improved in that area much better,” Ainge said.
Boston Celtics
That’s not the only area of growth Ainge has seen in these early days of training camp.
“He’s playing with more confidence,” Ainge said. “He’s always had confidence for a young kid. But now, he doesn’t look like a young kid anymore. He looks like a veteran player that really … ‘give me the ball’ every bit as much as Kyrie (Irving) or Gordon (Hayward) or Jaylen (Brown) or anybody; just as much as his team as anybody’s. You could see that in these first two days of practice.”
After shooting down one of the hosts' assertions, though, Ainge was intriguingly vague on another.
"I can't . . . I'm not going to answer that question," he said when they asked if he was behind the infamous Janos Twitter account.
And why wouldn't he fess up to such insights as . . .