Jayson Tatum Is Doing The Impossible…

Jayson Tatum Is Doing The Impossible…

The most underrated story line in the entire NBA right now is what’s happening with Jason Tatum. Recently, rumors have been swirling and he he literally told Shams he wants to return this season. This is a guy that 5 months ago tore his Achilles in the playoffs. Now there’s all these videos of him on the court. He’s dunking the basketball and all of a sudden people are getting ideas about what the Celtics would look like if Jason Tatum returned this year. Now, obviously, we’re not talking about Jason Tatum returning at the beginning of the season. Like I said, he’s five months removed from Achilles tear. That is absolutely not happening. But the possibility of Tatum returning in February or March, some kind of runup leading into the postseason is becoming more and more likely. And it’s clear that Tatum as a competitor wants to be out there. He wants to help the team. And if you look at the rest of the Eastern Conference, there’s potentially an opportunity here for Boston to at least semicompete. If you get Tatum back in the lineup, because the Pacers are going to be bad without Tyres Hallebert, or at least not competitive at the top of the conference, then you’re looking at teams like Orlando and Atlanta that are these upand cominging teams. Then of course you have the Knicks and the Cavs at the top of the East. And I could see Tatum and the Celtics convincing themselves that if he comes back and he’s healthy, they can compete with any of those teams in the postseason. And all of that sounds really cool until you really, really think about this. Really think about what it means to be five months removed from an Achilles tear. Like I said, he wouldn’t come back at the beginning of the year, but returning from an Achilles tear, even in 9 months, 10 months, would be completely absurd. Typically, when you tear your Achilles at any point, you miss the entirety of the next season. And if you tear it in the postseason, you absolutely miss the entirety of the next season. thinking about historical examples of guys like Kevin Durant who missed over a year and a half, more than Tatum even would miss if he came back at the beginning of next season cuz the season got pushed back for Kevin Durant because we went to the bubble. There was some pressure for him to potentially play in the bubble. But he came back and is one of the most successful Achilles recoveries that we’ve seen in a very long time cuz the Nets were patient with him and he was even older than Tatum is at this point in his career. And that’s just been the mindset that people have had around Achilles tears. It’s a very serious injury. It could potentially be careering. And the concept of Jason Tatum wanting to return this season sounds okay in theory when you think about the strength of the conference, when you think about what he could mean to the team. But in practice, this is absolutely absurd. And there’s one gigantic reason that everybody seems to be missing. This is not the 2024 Celtics. Jason Tatum is not returning to a team that even if you got 100% healthy pre- Achilles tear Jason Tatum, which you’re not going to get if he returns in the middle of the year, even if you got that guy, they are not a competitive a title competitive, I should say, basketball team. They’re just not. They intentionally got rid of guys like Drew Holiday, Chris Porzingis. They let Big Al, Luke Cornet walk in the off season because one, they wanted to save a ton of money. But two, the assumption was Tatum’s not going to come back in time. We can be bad this year, at least not all that competitive this year anyway. Potentially either get a pick or at the very least have a gap year, save some money, reset some things, and then we get Tan back for the start of the 2627 season. That was the concept for the entirety of the off season in Boston. And all of that revolved around, yes, saving money, but also Jason Tatum not playing this season due to an Achilles tear that he suffered in the postseason. And so to think that Tatum is just going to come back to this version of the Celtics in which I might be getting significant front court minutes. If you really look at the depth chart in the roster in the front court in Boston, it is atrocious. Even if you put Tatum in there at 85%, it’s still not all that great. And yes, you’ve got Peyton Pritchard, you got Derrick White, you’ve got Jaylen Brown, and then you add Tatum in there, you’re looking at four-fifths of a pretty decent starting lineup, or you can start Anthony Simons, you start whoever you want to. The problem is the rest of the roster, the depth is just not there. We’ve talked about this in multiple videos. I think people are underestimating just how bad the overall roster is in Boston when you take out the top three guys. And then, of course, if Tatum’s playing, you take out the top four guys. After that, it is a barely NBA level roster, if it’s even an NBA level roster. So, the concept of Tatum coming back is like, “Oh, that’s really cool. The East is going to be bad. Maybe they can compete.” Even if you put Jason Tatum at 85% health, recovering early from an Achilles tear in March. If you put him on this roster, they’re not better than Cleveland. They’re not better than New York. I personally don’t think they’re better than even those upand cominging teams like Atlanta, Orlando. So, why would you risk returning from injury quickly on a Boston team that might not be all that good? You might be fighting for a playin spot when Tatum returns just to go right into a tough postseason and then maybe play like what five regular season games, seven regular season games, goes right into the playoffs, maybe plays four or five games, you’re risking injury, a massive risk for a guy that’s your franchise player that for the most part should be mostly fine by the time next season rolls around. you’re risking all of that to try and maybe win a playoff series as like an eight seed. I don’t understand it. Obviously, there’s a lot of variables involved here. If the Celtics are 25 games under 500 in February, Jason Tatum will not be playing. And if they’re 10 games above 500 in February, maybe you can convince yourself that Jason Tatum returning makes sense. But to me, I ju I cannot understand any mindset here that involves Jason Tatum playing this year. If if I was in charge of the Celtics, obviously I’m not. If I was, my plan would be, let’s be really bad. Like Jaylen Brown, shoot 30 times a game. I don’t care. Let’s develop some of these younger guys. Baylor Shyman, you’re going to get a ton of run and we’re probably going to win like 30 32 games. Even in a weekend Eastern Conference, maybe we get some decent lottery luck. We actually have our pick this year. And then you’re looking at a situation where to start the 26 27 season, Tatum, Brown, whatever the draft pick is, you can spend a little bit more in free agency and all of a sudden things look pretty nice. It would suck to take a gap year for a team that has been so unbelievably competitive for the last half decade to decade. Yes, that would be unfortunate, but in the long term, it makes so much more sense than risking some kind Imagine if Jason Tatum comes back in in March, plays a couple of regular season games, then you get him into the playoffs, and he gets hurt again, and then all of a sudden, you’ve risked all of this to gain absolutely nothing. And the situation that you were in when he tore his Achilles the first time, you’re in that situation all over again. and the clock completely resets. I don’t understand it. I will never understand it. I understand the the logic of the conference isn’t as good, but I don’t think you’re understanding just how bad this version of the Celtics is, even with Tatum. Now, I will say the only thing that would make a little bit of sense here for me is something similar to what the Pacers did with Paul George when he had that really crazy leg injury while playing for Team USA. He played like eight games at the end of a season just to kind of get in the rhythm a little bit to kind of give him some motivation for his rehab. Kind of a light at the end of the tunnel like hey this is the thing that you’re working towards and progressing towards. So in a scenario in which the Celtics are like hovering around 500. I could understand the logic of playing Tatum 15 minutes a night, 20 minutes a night just because he’s at that point in his recovery. You want to give him some run. You want to get him used to playing again. Cool. I can understand that a little bit. To me, I still would sit him the entire year. It’s cool that he wants to play. I love the competitiveness, but it makes absolutely no sense for a guy that’s going to be making 60 plus 70 plus million dollars for the next couple of seasons. That guy can’t be 80% of what he was before. That guy needs to be 90 95 99% of what he was pre- Achilles tear for the Celtics to be anything over the next couple of seasons. If Jason Tatum does not fully recover from this Achilles injury as a result of coming back early or as a result of anything, it completely changes and basically ruins everything the Celtics could possibly be over the next couple of years. It is a massive risk in my opinion. It is way too much risk and it’s absolutely absurd to even consider playing Jason Tatum at all this year. If he had torn his Achilles in October the prior year, December the prior year, okay, maybe you talk about it. He tore it in the playoffs and here we are five months later talking about him playing. Absolutely not.

Jayson Tatum wants to play for the Boston Celtics THIS season after tearing his achilles just 5 months ago…

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