Jayson Tatum is thinking about his return.
Well, of course he is. The Boston Celtics star stated earlier this fall that he wants to return this season. He has always been the type of player to suit up whenever he can.
But Tatum has advanced past thinking about the dream of returning. The glory of it. The fun. And now, he is thinking about the reality of it, the nitty-gritty details he will need to confront whenever he puts on his Celtics jersey again.
“That’s something I contemplate every day,” Tatum said on “The Pivot Podcast” when asked how much he thinks about how he will fit back in when he returns. “More so about the team. If or when I do come back this season, they will have played 50 some-odd games without me, so they have an identity this year or things that they’ve felt have clicked for them. And it’s been successful. They’re the (second) team in the East up to this point.
“So there is a thought in my head, like, how does that work? Or how does that look with me integrating myself off the injury … 50, 60 games into a season? There obviously could be some challenges. And it is a thought: Do I come back? Should I wait? It’s something that I honestly, recently, in the last two weeks or so just kind of contemplate every single day.”
There’s a lot to unpack in that quote. First — and this is just my read — Tatum must not be entirely confident in his abilities at this point. If he were, he wouldn’t be thinking about whether he should wait to come back. He’s Jayson Tatum. No matter how much success the Celtics have found without him, his presence will elevate them as long as he can play like himself. If he’s right, he shouldn’t worry about how his return will impact their new identity. They can — and should — transform themselves to highlight his strengths.
That said, Tatum knows it’s not just about him. He can see the Celtics have built a new formula without him. And he seems to recognize that when he does come back, he won’t quite be at full strength. At the very least, he will be on a minutes restriction. He will be rusty. Though he won’t be cleared until he’s fully healthy, he will surely need time to feel normal physically on the court. Considering where the Celtics stand, that alone will set up challenges. If he does come back, he will be doing so with limited time left in the regular season. He will need to ramp back up while the team prepares for the playoffs. He will be reintegrating himself into a team that has played like a contender so far after reshaping itself without him.
Clearly, it would be a rare luxury for the Celtics to add a five-time All-NBA player to the second seed in the East. And it’s not as if Tatum will force them to revamp their entire style. He is not just extremely gifted, but one of the most malleable All-Stars in recent memory. He can play with or without the ball. He can spot up on the weak side or operate as the screener. He can guard any position on the court. He’s not, say, James Harden, who needs the ball in his hands constantly to be effective. Part of Tatum’s greatness is that he can be whatever his team needs him to be.
Still, it’s not hard to see how the current environment will need to change once Tatum suits up again. In his absence, other players have been granted the freedom to explore their gifts. Jaylen Brown has spoken several times about needing to sacrifice parts of his game in the past, but has been able to show more of his talent this season. His 36.6 percent usage rate this season, easily a career high, trails only Luka Dončić.
Jaylen Brown, right, has led the Celtics while teammate Jayson Tatum has been out injured. (Petre Thomas / Imagn Images)
“I think we’ve changed our approach significantly,” Brown said recently. “I was discouraged a lot of times to take midrange shots. At different points in my career, they literally told me not to. So now it’s like, Jaylen, you can take whatever shot you want. I was like, sure. So I’ve been shooting as many midranges as I can get up, but at different points in my career, that hasn’t been the case.”
Letting Brown cook has worked. The Celtics rank second in offensive efficiency. Despite losing all the talent they did over the offseason, they have scored at a higher clip than last season. Brown hasn’t been alone in taking advantage of new opportunities. Payton Pritchard has emerged as one of the league’s most efficient isolation players. Boston’s young wings — especially Jordan Walsh, Hugo González and Baylor Scheierman — have proven to be difference-making defenders. Newcomer Anfernee Simons has poured in plenty of buckets off the bench.
Tatum’s return will impact everything. He will cut into his teammates’ minutes. He will take away touches from the Celtics’ top scorers. Even if he comes off the bench initially while on a minutes restriction, he will eventually push one of the current starters to the bench. His presence could force at least one of the young wings out of the rotation, or at least into a narrower role. Once Tatum is right, none of those changes will be bad ones for the Celtics. But they will need to adjust to him.
I’m not here to restart the outdated conversation about whether Tatum and Brown can coexist. At this point in their careers, only someone without a memory would doubt their ability to do so. They have reached the conference finals together five times. They have advanced to the finals twice. They have won a championship.
Beyond that, they have proven that team success matters most to them. Brown’s comments about enjoying this season don’t mean he will suddenly stop putting winning first whenever Tatum comes back. As usual, I expect them both to do whatever it takes for the Celtics to maximize their potential as a team. Even early in their careers, when they didn’t quite know the best ways to lift their teammates, their hearts were in the right place. They just needed to learn how to use their powers for good. The days when they struggled to make the right reads are long gone. And those days aren’t coming back.
Still, Tatum’s Achilles injury is a new variable. How limited will he be when he returns? How long will he need to feel comfortable again on the court? And how much should the Celtics — who have proven themselves as a threat to win the Eastern Conference without him — adapt when they welcome him back?
Earlier this week, Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla shared what has impressed him about the New England Patriots’ run to the Super Bowl.
“I think you just take a look at a team that’s developed an identity over the course of the season,” Mazzulla said. “I think every coach, regardless of the sport, is looking for that, creating that type of identity and consistency and playing to that throughout an entire season. I think they are a great example of that this year.”
The Celtics have been a great example of that, too. They have developed an identity that works for them. They know what they need to be.
That Tatum is even thinking about the challenges of fitting into that identity shows he has the right mindset. Not every player of his stature would spend time contemplating how his return would impact everyone around him, but he wants to do the right thing for his team. Based on his comments, he feels so strongly about it that he has even thought about delaying his return. He shouldn’t do that. He should come back whenever he’s ready to come back. Then, he and the Celtics can figure everything else out.
