Jayson Tatum shared a hilarious story about the time LeBron James made him cry

Jayson Tatum and LeBron James have known each other for a really, really long time. They go way back.

There’s obviously that tweet from 2012 where a 14-year-old Tatum is practically begging James to follow him on Twitter. Does he follow him yet? Honestly, I hope so after all this time.

Other than that, though, they’ve played against each other a ton so far in the NBA, including in some really big playoff games. They definitely seem tight now.

But it wasn’t always sunshine and roses between these two. In fact, there was one time that James actually made Tatum cry.

Alright, that’s a bit misleading. Tatum wasn’t crying over LeBron as a grown man. But once, when he was 11 years old, James turned him down for an autograph and young Tatum wasn’t happy about it.

Jayson Tatum recalls being 11 years old and crying after Lebron James turned him down for an autograph:

Lebron: “Is that why you dunked on me in the Conference Finals?”

(Via @NBA IG) pic.twitter.com/yh71ApkTZ5

— Noa Dalzell (@NoaDalzellNBA) July 16, 2024

“In Memphis a long time ago, Larry Hughes was my dad’s best friend. They played on the Cavs together. My mom took me to a game in Memphis. I wanted to meet LeBron and I wanted to get a picture with him and an autograph. There was a lot of people back there. He was like ‘I’m out. I gotta go.’ I got in the car and started crying. But we cool now.” 

That’s hilarious and adorable all at once.  LeBron had a perfect response to this.

“That’s why you dunked on me in though? That’s why you dunked on me in the Conference Finals?”

HA. That’s funny. One of Tatum’s biggest moments early in his career was dunking on LeBron. Now, I guess we know why.