{"id":367054,"date":"2025-11-09T14:39:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T14:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/367054\/"},"modified":"2025-11-09T14:39:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T14:39:09","slug":"nba-star-jayson-tatum-surprises-nc-central-university-mens-basketball-team-with-new-sneakers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/367054\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA star Jayson Tatum surprises NC Central University men’s basketball team with new sneakers"},"content":{"rendered":"

DURHAM, N.C. (WTVD) — Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum surprised the North Carolina Central University (NCCU) men’s basketball team with a full set of his new JT 4 sneakers.<\/p>\n

The Eagles, expecting a team meeting, were instead greeted by a video message from Tatum.<\/p>\n

“Best of luck to the season starting up,” Tatum said. “I got a special gift from myself to y’all-new JT 4s for everybody on the team. Just wanted to show some love to the squad. I’m a check y’all out this year, best of luck.”<\/p>\n

The sneakers were wheeled into the gym on a cart, prompting the players to erupt in cheers, claps, and excitement as they unboxed their new shoes.<\/p>\n

NCCU head coach LeVelle Moton<\/a> has a personal connection to Tatum, having been an assistant coach for the USA Basketball U16 National Team, which Tatum played for.<\/p>\n

Tatum’s ties to Durham extend further; the six-time NBA All-Star played one season at Duke University before becoming the No. 3 pick in the NBA Draft.<\/p>\n

In October, Duke announced<\/a> Tatum would serve in a volunteer advisory role for the program as “chief basketball officer.” Tatum is currently recovering from a ruptured right Achilles tendon suffered in May during the NBA playoffs.<\/p>\n

ESPN contributed to this report. <\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2025 WTVD-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DURHAM, N.C. (WTVD) — Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum surprised the North Carolina Central University (NCCU) men’s basketball…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":367055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[177474,1260,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-367054","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-177474","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}