Is an MVP worth an NBA title?

When we are talking about the Celtics this year there isn’t much to complain about. Best team in the league with a rookie head coach that had blocked out the noise of the sex scandal that rocked the team before the start. You got the Jays who respectfully are the best duo in the NBA right now putting up monster numbers, and you got Jayson Tatum as the front runner for the MVP with stats of 30.9 points per game (he would be the first Celtic to ever average 30 + point per game in a season), 8.1 rebounds per game, and 4.1 assists per game. But as a fan the biggest stat that scares me is the 36.9 minutes he's currently averaging this year, ranked third among all players.

At 24 (will be 25 March 3rd) Jayson Tatum has been playing some of the most minutes in the NBA, tack on the Olympics on top of that he probably has some of the most minutes played among all players. An MVP campaign would mean he would keep up with this pace but as a green teamer I would give that MVP away for something better like a finals MVP. I don’t care who you are or what type of athlete you are, you put that many miles on your body you will for sure crash in burn with an injury or just fatigue come June. We were the better team against Golden State last year if we were 100 %, do we really want a repeat of that again.

The Celtics have depth but that depth is no Tatum, is the 1 seed really all that valuable? We proved last year that it wasn’t being the 2 seed. When you are this good from top to bottom, Joe Mazzula needs to take a page out of Greg Popovich’s book. Rest your guys with “injuries”. It’s the eye test, is Tatum the best player in the league right now? God damn right he is. Would being snubbed for the MVP light a fire under his ass this playoff run? God damn right it would. So don’t get me wrong from this, Jayson Tatum deserves an MVP but I would rather him get the Finals MVP. Motivation and rest will get us there.