ORLANDO, Fla. — Prior to last season, Jayson Tatum had a chance to train with one of his basketball idols, Kobe Bryant. Tatum had just completed a dazzling rookie year, helping Boston to the brink of the NBA Finals, and he was in position to ascend to stardom. And it seemed that working with one of the game’s all-time greats could only help.
But Boston stumbled through a frustrating year and Tatum’s game mostly seemed stagnant. And along the way, there was a growing — if faulty — narrative that Bryant, a former Laker, had stunted the growth of a burgeoning Celtics star.