Richard Jefferson backs up Donovan Mitchell after bold take about Jayson Tatum and Boston

Richard Jefferson clarified his take that if Donovan Mitchell were on last season’s iteration of the Boston Celtics instead of Jayson Tatum, the Celtics still would have been crowned as the 2024 NBA champions.

On top of the notion that the Celtics would still have won the title with Mitchell instead of Tatum, Jefferson also claimed that the former would have averaged 25 points per game with Boston. In Jefferson’s defense, Mitchell has averaged 24.8 points for his career and scored 26.6 points per contest during the 2023-24 regular season.

But it’s difficult to pinpoint an area of the game that doesn’t involve scoring the ball where Mitchell measures up to Tatum. To start, Tatum is a voracious rebounder, as he averaged 8.1 last season and 9.7 per game during the Celtics’ title run. Mitchell averaged a career-high 5.1 rebounds a season ago, which is lower than Tatum’s career average of 7.2 boards per contest.

Mitchell’s defensive chops also leave a lot to be desired. He did average an impressive amount of steals per game (1.8) in his second season in Cleveland, but that number isn’t a good indicator of his impact — or lack thereof — on that end of the court.

Tatum, on the other hand, is a very serviceable defensive player. He also arguably has more advantageous physical features than Mitchell does, as the former stands at 6-foot-8 and weighs in at 209 pounds. Surprisingly, Mitchell — who is 215 pounds — weighs more than Tatum does despite the fact that he is several inches shorter.