Jayson Tatum is the newest member of the NBA's $300 million club.
The Boston Celtics star has agreed to a five-year, $314 million contract extension to remain with the reigning NBA champions, a person with knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press on Monday.
The new pact will begin with the 2025-26 season and keep the five-time All-Star in Boston through 2029-30 season, according to the person who spoke on the condition of anonymity because it has not been announced.
The Athletic and ESPN were first to report the deal.
When completed Tatum’s new, supermax contract will become the largest in NBA history, supplanting the one signed last offseason by teammate Jaylen Brown, when he inked a five-year deal that will pay him up to $304 million.
Tatum averaged 26.9 points, 8.1 rebounds, 4.9 assists and shot 47% from the field in earning All-NBA first-team honors for the third consecutive season. Those numbers grew to 25 points, 9.7 rebounds and 6.3 assists per game during a playoff run in which he eclipsed 30 points six times, including 31 in their championship-clinching Game 5 win over the Dallas Mavericks.
He will look to add to his hardware this summer as a member of the U.S. men’s basketball team when it attempts to capture its fifth consecutive gold medal. Tatum previously won a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
News of Tatum’s deal came on the same day that fellow Celtics starter Derrick White reportedly agreed to a four-year, $126 million extension. All five of Boston’s starters –- Tatum, Brown, White, Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis --- were already under contract for next season. With Tatum and White’s new agreements they now all could be together through at least the 2025-26 season.
The deal also came on the heels of the Celtics ownership group, led by Wyc Grousbeck, announcing its plans to sell all of its shares by 2028.
Barring any significant roster changes, Boston is expected to have a combined payroll and luxury tax that will exceed $400 million when Tatum’s contract takes effect.
AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/nba
This version corrects the Tokyo Olympics to 2021.
Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum, left, celebrates next to Celtics co-owner Stephen Pagliuca, right, near the Larry O'Brien Championship Trophy after the Celtics won the NBA championship with a Game 5 victory over the Dallas Mavericks on Monday, June 17, 2024, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum embraces the Larry O'Brien Championship Trophy as his son Deuce takes a picture after the Celtics defeated the Dallas Mavericks in Game 5 to win the NBA basketball finals Monday, June 17, 2024, in Boston. (Elsa/Pool Photo via AP)
Boston Celtics' Jayson Tatum celebrates the team's NBA basketball championship during a duck boat parade Friday, June 21, 2024, in Boston. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)
NEW YORK (AP) — The leader of a conservative think tank orchestrating plans for a massive overhaul of the federal government in the event of a Republican presidential win said that the country is in the midst of a “second American Revolution” that will be bloodless “if the left allows it to be.”
Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts made the comments Tuesday on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, adding that Republicans are “in the process of taking this country back.”
Democrats are “apoplectic right now” because the right is winning, Roberts told former U.S. Rep. Dave Brat, one of the podcast’s guest hosts as Bannon is serving a four-month prison term. “And so I come full circle on this response and just want to encourage you with some substance that we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”
Roberts’ remarks shed light on how a group that promises to have significant influence over a possible second term for former President Donald Trump is thinking about this moment in American politics. The Heritage Foundation is spearheading Project 2025, a sweeping road map for a new GOP administration that includes plans for dismantling aspects of the federal government and ousting thousands of civil servants in favor of Trump loyalists who will carry out a hard-right agenda without complaint.
His call for revolution and vague reference to violence also unnerved some Democrats who interpreted it as threatening.
“This is chilling,” former Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson wrote on the social platform X. “Their idea of a second American Revolution is to undo the first one.”
James Singer, a spokesperson for President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, pointed to this week’s Fourth of July holiday in an emailed statement.
“248 years ago tomorrow America declared independence from a tyrannical king, and now Donald Trump and his allies want to make him one at our expense,” Singer said, adding that Trump and his allies are ”dreaming of a violent revolution to destroy the very idea of America.”
Roberts, whose name Bannon recently floated to The New York Times as a potential chief of staff option for Trump, also said on the podcast that Republicans should be encouraged by the Supreme Court’s recent immunity ruling.
He said Monday’s decision — which gives presidents broad immunity from prosecution — is “vital” to ensure a president won’t have to “second guess, triple guess every decision they’re making in their official capacity.”
In an emailed statement on Wednesday, Roberts reiterated his comments from the podcast, saying Americans “are in the process of carrying out the Second American Revolution to take power back from the elites and despotic bureaucrats.”
“These patriots are committed to peaceful revolution at the ballot box,” he said. “Unfortunately, it's the Left that has a long history of violence, so it's up to them to allow a peaceful transfer of power.”
Roberts pointed to the protests after the killing of George Floyd by police in 2020, some of which erupted into crime, vandalism and violence. Democrats, in turn, have accused their Republican counterparts of violence, using the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot in which Trump supporters tried to forcibly overturn his loss to President Joe Biden.
Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, said Roberts’ comments about a “second American Revolution” are “a bit terrifying but also elucidating.” The 1,000-page Project 2025 playbook calls for far-reaching changes in government, including rolling back protections for the LGBTQ community and infusing Christianity more deeply into society.
“Roberts, the Heritage Foundation, and its allies in Project 2025 want to reorder American society and fundamentally change it,” Beirich said. “He’s said the quiet part out loud.”
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FILE - Kevin Roberts, president of The Heritage Foundation, speaks at the National Religious Broadcasters convention at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center Feb. 22, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. Roberts, the leader of a conservative think tank planning for a massive overhaul of the federal government says we are in the midst of “a second American Revolution” that will be bloodless “if the left allows it to be.” (AP Photo/George Walker IV, File)
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Chesapeake, Va., Friday, June 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)
