Boston Celtics All-Star small forward Jayson tatum has no intentions of sitting out the Orlando-area restart planned for the end of July, reports NBC Boston Sports’ A. Sherrod Blakeley.
The New York Daily News Stefan Bondy published a report that seemed to cast a more pessimistic picture of the Duke product’s desire to play than a report earlier this week by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
That report, regarding players — including Tatum — who wanted insurance to cover risk to looming contract extensions, framed the concern as more of one focused on concern over the danger a resumption of play posed to such extension-eligible players, and mentioned nothing of Tatum’s supposed reluctance to return.
Blakely’s source claims it is untrue that the St. Louis native would sit out the resumed season because of the contract situation, noting Tatum is “concerned like every other player about returning to play. There’s a lot … going on in the world that players need to be more concerned about,” the latter a reference to protests over the killing of George Floyd.
“But sitting out because of the contract? Hell no!”, related the unnamed source.
Another anonymous source — this one an executive with an unknown NBA team — shared that, “when it comes to injuries, restart or not, players always run the risk of having one whenever they step on the court.”
“Players have more concerns with the reboot to the season; I get that,” they continued. “But I just don’t see guys sitting out games because they might get hurt. They run that risk every time they play the game.”
