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Jayson Tatum Had a Surprising Choice for His Coolest Accomplishment of the Year

Stephen Douglas

Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown at the Celtics championship parade.
Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown at the Celtics championship parade. / Brian Fluharty-Imagn Images
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Jayson Tatum appeared on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon on Wednesday night. Tatum was there to promote his new children's book, Baby Dunks-a-Lot and talk about all the cool stuff he did this summer.

At this point, there's not much he hasn't done. He won a championship for the Boston Celtics. He threw out a first pitch in his hometown. He wrote a children's book. Even when his shot wasn't falling or he was fighting for playing time at the Olympics, he was still winning a gold medal in Paris.

Still, one thing stands out as the coolest for Tatum this year—making the cover of NBA 2K25.

"That might be the coolest thing," Tatum told Fallon. "Just as a kid, right? Every kid grew up playing NBA2K and first you want to dream about being in the game and that happens your rookie year. Then the top of the mountain is wanting to be on the cover and when I found out ... and just seeing it right now is still a surreal feeling."

It is unclear how high on the cool list a battle rap about children's books with Jimmy Fallon will rank.

Please start basketball season soon.

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Stephen Douglas

STEPHEN DOUGLAS

Stephen Douglas is a Senior Writer on the Breaking & Trending News Team at Sports Illustrated. He has been in journalism and media since 2008, and now casts a wide net with coverage across all sports. Stephen spent more than a decade with The Big Lead and has previously written for Uproxx and The Sporting News. He has three children, two degrees and one now unverified Twitter account.