Let’s be honest: Player of the Week is a dumb award. I love it anyway.
The NBA instituted Player of the Week and Player of the Month awards in 1979-1980, along with the three-point line. The awards were designed to provide further talking points for an NBA bracing itself for new heights of popularity with the rookie seasons of Larry Bird and Magic Johnson.
Originally, the league only bequeathed one honor for each week/month. However, starting in the 2001-02 season, they split it by conference, doubling the number of awards that (almost) no one cares about! Even the league’s biggest fans have no idea who won the award in a given week unless it was their favorite player.
There’s a bit of mystery to how the players are chosen, too. Statistical excellence is required, but Player of the Week doesn’t always go to the top box-score performer. It doesn’t even require a player to win all his games that week. Former Celtic Jared Sullinger won the award in 2014 for a week in which he averaged 20/13 on 50% shooting — good numbers, but hardly great, particularly given he had an 11-point, 4-for-13 outing during that span in a loss to the Mavericks!
Just because Player of the Week is silly, however, doesn’t mean it isn’t fun. There’s something I’ve always enjoyed about the league officially recognizing little micro-moments of greatness in the long, long season, and I actually prefer that the award go to a random hodgepodge of people. It would be pretty boring if the prize had gone to LeBron James every week for 10 straight years, wouldn’t it?
(It nearly did anyway; James’ 68 Player of the Week awards are more than double second-place Kobe Bryant’s 33.)
The Celtics as a whole have garnered the second-most total Player of the Week awards with 73 (behind the Lakers’ 96), but they’re middle of the pack with just 16 different players who have gotten the award — six teams have had 20 players.
Here’s the complete list of Celtics winners. (Remember, Bird would undoubtedly have had more if the award had been split by conference from the start.) Paul Pierce’s 17 are tied for the 18th-most all-time.
(To see all the winners, check out RealGM).
Tatum, of course, turns 27 in a few months. He has years to add to his trophies (Pennants? Commemorative coffee mugs? Trucker hats? I have no idea what they win for this.), and he should eventually catch Pierce.
Tatum already has surpassed Pierce in another category. Player of the Month is a rarer and, generally, more statistically sound award. Five Celtics have won it: Bird (7x), Tatum (5x), Pierce (4x), Antoine Walker (1x), and Isaiah Thomas (1x).
“I’m one of the, humbly, one of the best basketball players in the world,” Tatum has said in the past. He knows who he is, and a somewhat random award given every Monday is an afterthought at best. The extra validation is always nice, but in the words of Joe Mazzulla: “Nobody cares.”
(Except me. I care.)
