Jayson Tatum picked a fitting day to bring up a shout-out from an NBA icon.
Hours after leading Boston to a 119-103 over the Chicago Bulls in his first game back from a bout with COVID-19, the Celtics star took to Twitter to react to a recent podcast clip of NBA great Allen Iverson raving about Tatum.
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Boston sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
"I love Donovan (Mitchell) -- Jayson Tatum, dawg. Dawg!" Iverson says in the clip, which is from a Sept. 24 episode of Stephen Jackson and Matt Barnes' "All The Smoke" podcast.
Jackson points out that Tatum has a lot of Kobe Bryant in his game, to which Iverson responds: "Yeah, you could tell. You could tell he was working with Kobe."
Are Tatum and Brown top-10 players? Scal, Perk and Abby have heated debate
Tatum idolized Bryant growing up and got to train with the Los Angeles Lakers star after his rookie season. Bryant and his daughter, Gigi, died one year ago Tuesday in a tragic helicopter crash, so perhaps Tatum had Kobe on his mind when he came across this clip early Tuesday morning.
Boston Celtics
Find the latest Boston Celtics news, highlights, analysis and more with NBC Sports Boston.
Tatum has made the most of his sessions with Bryant, earning third-team All-NBA honors last season while blossoming into an elite talent. He's averaging 26.6 points, 6.8 rebounds and 3.9 assists per game this season and to date has validated the substantial hype he's received since making the leap from promising rookie to NBA star.
