Yesterday, as the Boston Celtics won their 18th banner, the camera’s attention was not on them. It was rather focused on Jayson Tatum, choking, fighting back tears of joy, hugging his kid, Deuce. In the middle of a confetti storm, all he said was, “What you gonna say now? What you gonna say now?” He went ahead to repeat this phrase later with his mother around. “What you gonna say now?”

For many people, this phrase sounds familiar. Even as the dust is still settling on the 2024 Larry O’Brien, people’s spirits are still roaring; trying to humble Tatum. Trying to tell him that it’s not cool to plagiarize.

Yes! As it turns out just 2 years ago when the Celtics lost the NBA Finals against the Warriors, Steph Curry said the same words in his locker room during celebrations. Fans didn’t appreciate this bit at all. At first, people were happy to see Jayson win. But then his going around copying Curry makes us all wonder, is the GSW legend really living in his mind, rent-free after all this time?

Tatum’s celebrations corroborated this.

Why would you go around outrightly copying a 4x Champion? By all means, Steph is one of the most innovative players to step foot on the hardwood floor since Kareem Abdul Jabbar. His uncanny precision and his drilling out the no-look 3-pointers revolutionized the NBA landscape. And then someone like Tatum after winning his first championship, plagiarising not just Steph but his personality? Many did not find it very cool.

And it was not just this. Tatum even tried to emulate the famous Kobe Bryant picture where he’s holding the trophy. In desperation, he let the media and photographers near the bathroom around his locker room just to get “that kind of” a picture. If this wasn’t enough, he even plagiarized Kanye West!

Yes, Kanye West.

Remember Ye’s 2005 Grammy speech after winning the Best Rap Album honors for The College Dropout? If you don’t, this is what West said: “Everybody was wondering what would happen if we didn’t win. I guess we’ll never know.” Without fail, Tatum copied this entire thing in a celebratory speech to his team and even dropped the mic as if it didn’t matter where the content was coming from.

He’s mimicking many popular personalities, and those were not the only ones! He didn’t even leave Kevin Garnett alone with his “we did it” bit after winning yesterday. Even though this wasn’t plagiarism, since Garnett literally said, “Anything is possible!” in his time, Tatum still emulated his mannerisms when he said, “We did it,” through and through.

Yes, Tatum is an excellent NBA player, and nobody wants to deny that. Winning a Championship is no cakewalk. But then, he goes around doing this. Of course, people are going to dislike him and his franchise. That’s because JT is still young and he can develop his game so much more. He lacks that spatial creativity on the court, he lacks that “madness”, and he lacks what Curry, Kevin Durant, Draymond Green, Giannis, James Harden, and even Nikola have.

All of the above names make it a point that they make their fans feel what they’re feeling. They try to scrape for every inch of advantage and madness on the court, bend space-time just to win the game they’re playing, driving their fans crazy. And fans are satiated when looking at them. Fans spend a good deal of their lifetimes to watch their match highlights.

From that elite point of view, doesn’t it seem like Tatum isn’t there yet? He has the skills; he knows what he’s doing, but he doesn’t invoke that passion in his fans yet.

When the Celtics were blasting the Dallas Mavericks on the court, everyone’s heart went out to Luka Doncic for his bleeding knees and his disappointment. Even though Kyrie Irving isn’t the most liked personality of the NBA, our hearts went out to him when he stepped aside, and congratulated each Celtics member on the courtside before exiting TD Garden with 2:37 remaining in the game. All of this is original. What Irving did probably gained him more respect and applauds than what he did on the court.

It just seems like Tatum is fixated on the idols, on the big stars that people love and adore. And he’s trying to seek that same stardom that Curry possesses and probably Kobe and others have. But in today’s generation fans are sharper to catch cross-references than ever. See how they’re now reacting to the whole “Jayson Tatum-plagiarism” fiasco.

Is Jayson Tatum really plagiarising his championship celebrations?

Fans do think so. Here are the funniest of reactions to give you an informed overview of people’s perspectives.

This fan said it out loud: Tatum was trying to reenact Curry’s words.

For someone who couldn’t beat the player 2 years ago, saying the same words as them, not cool!

Look at this fan. He possibly knows how plagiarism works. They’re rather fixing it for Tatum. X is full of such helpful people, we must say!

And then this fan can’t help but cry out of sadness like Jesse Pinkman from Breaking Bad.

People even say that his celebrating with his kid in the air isn’t real. He rather blatantly copied it from Drew Brees. That’s quite a serious allegation. But the can of worms is already open now.

This fan even got WNBA’s idol Angel Reese in the picture, claiming that Tatum probably copied her too.

This fan feels whatever Tatum did on the court after winning the 2024 title was probably staged. Check this out:

Again, fans aren’t too proud of Tatum trying to emulate other’s way of celebrating.

And this fan has proper advice for Tatum on how to back your findings with proper sources.

Even if the NBA media isn’t okay with Tatum’s antics right now, the Celtics are. They have won a championship; they have that 18th banner hanging high in Boston, and they are the only franchise to have 18 championships! Tatum was a part of that title-winning run with the Celtics. So even when he’s not bringing his originality, the Cs still support him and defend him from the criticism.

What do you think should be the next thing to do?