Is All-NBA Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum the city of Boston’s best athlete? According to Marc Bertrand of WEEI’s “Zolak and Bertrand” show, “Tatum is Boston’s best athlete and it’s really not close. There is nobody in town who can get into the conversation in their sport the way Tatum is in the conversation.”

“There is nobody close,” added Bertrand for emphasis in a recent article. Still, some might push back on that status as Scott Zolak did because “Tatum hasn’t won yet. So he’s in the process of getting there to win. With the Patriots, Belichick is attached to the team.”

“Now, if there was a random coach here, nobody would care about the Pats,” he explained. “It’s the whole Belichick dynamic that keeps it alive.”

“I would agree with that, but for Tatum, the unfortunate part for him is that he is coming into the Boston sports scene at a really bad time,” answered Bertrand. “He wants to be a superstar.”

The obvious path of course for the St. Louis native to get the recognition he seems to be after is to hang a banner. And despite some early turbulence, the Celtics are in as good a position to do so as they have been in at least a decade.

As Bertrand points out, “It’s just a tough time to be thrown around in the same breath as Pedro Martinez, Manny Ramirez, and (David) Ortiz. All those Red Sox stars won multiple times.”

But a banner for Boston from Tatum may well be enough to cement the status as Boston’s best athlete simply based on the hunger for Banner 18 in the city. And he might well do the deed with his teammates as soon as this season.

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Story originally appeared on Celtics Wire