Jayson Tatum Thread

[Hal14]

The team has provided no timeline, so all this talk is speculation.

Exactly. The team has provided no timeline. Until they do, there's no reason to think he'll play this season.

[Fierce1]

Watch on YouTube

Jay King on Tatum in the first 2 minutes of the video.

[ryan in Maine]

Does Tatum have braids

[Fierce1]

Does Tatum have braids

He does now.

[bucknersrevenge]

I think he'll be back this year but that's just because I think so. Obviously we won't really have an idea where he's at until the beginning of February. I think the doctors will clear him before this season ends. I understand him, his family, his trainer, the medical staff, and the organization will all weigh in on what makes the most sense here, but we also know that the final decision will be Jayson's. If he clears every hurdle because he is focused on his rehab, there really isn't anything that will stop him. I believe that is the scenario that will likely unfold. Fans are going to be upset by this. Writers will write about how they don't like the risk.

And Tatum's going to do it anyway because THAT is who Tatum is.

[2Mas]

I think he'll be back this year but that's just because I think so. Obviously we won't really have an idea where he's at until the beginning of February. I think the doctors will clear him before this season ends. I understand him, his family, his trainer, the medical staff, and the organization will all weigh in on what makes the most sense here, but we also know that the final decision will be Jayson's. If he clears every hurdle because he is focused on his rehab, there really isn't anything that will stop him. I believe that is the scenario that will likely unfold. Fans are going to be upset by this. Writers will write about how they don't like the risk.

And Tatum's going to do it anyway because THAT is who Tatum is.

I definitely agree with you & yet i really hope you are wrong lol.

[Hal14]

Hal, I don't understand why you seem to be ignoring the info from actual experts. There's a post a few spots above this that says Dr O'Malley, who performed Tatum's cutting-edge surgery, published a paper saying the rehab time is 24+ weeks. Then it's just a matter of hitting his progressional benchmarks.

https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=119685916#p119685916

Also, according to Achilles experts, there has in fact never been a 27 year old elite athlete who got surgery within 12 hours. The age and timing of the procedure makes a huge difference.

https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=119681854#p119681854

Not to mention new stem cell and growth cells injections that promote healing and weren't available to a guy like Kobe 15 years ago.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11965899/

The celtics blog article you're pointing me to says this:

Dr. Soslowsky said that the return to injury spans from anywhere between 7 months to a year and a half, and it’s nearly impossible at this point to determine which of those scenarios is most realistic. In a few months, Tatum and the Celtics will be able to assess where he’s at in his recovery and determine whether he’s in a position to make a push to return next season.

“At some point in some months, we’ll get a much better idea of whether they’re going to try and get back next season or not,” he said. “If you want to be conservative, one would say, well, it’s probably a 12-month rehab anyway. Therefore, let’s let him sit out and give him the best shot during the following season. On the other hand, if in a handful of months he’s doing well, then there’ll be the push and pull to say, we can get him back next season.”

ESPN’s Marc Spears reported that Jayson Tatum’s father, Justin Tatum, expects his son to return to the floor in 8-9 months — which means there’s hope he would be available to lace up in February. But the Celtics offered no official recovery.

“I think the likelihood of coming back next season is pretty low, honestly,” Soslowsky said. “We have seen when people come back early, there certainly is a risk of relapsing. That would be catastrophic, that would be awful. And so that’s not something that one would want to risk. On the other hand, we’ll know in a few months how he’s progressing.”

The TL/DR for that passage in the Celticsblog article is that Dr. Soslowsky says:

-There's a chance he comes back this season
-But the likelihood of him coming back this season is "pretty low"
-Coming back too early carries increased risk for re-injury which would be "catastrophic, awful and not something one would want to risk"

You're again ignoring the info from his surgeon.

Anyway... my position is he should come back when he's healthy and cleared. I think that's going to be faster than our expectations going in, based on the info I've consumed since he went down and the progress he's already made, but when that happens it will be the right time.

I mean, the alternative is he what? He achieves all his benchmarks. His surgeon says he's cleared, the doctors and trainers say he's cleared, the team says he's cleared, JT himself says he's cleared... and then he's supposed to arbitrarily sit out a few more months until RGM posters think he should be ready? I'm obviously being facetious here, but should we make a poll so JT knows when he's allowed to come back?

1) I wasn't ignoring anything. If you post something that makes like 80 different points, the person probably isn't going to respond to all 80 of them..we don't need a bunch of novels going back and forth here (lord knows I've already posted my share of them but I'm trying to be more succinct now lol).

2) I just looked..Dr O'Malley's paper is 14 pages long. Surely you didn't expect us to read through the whole thing. Perhaps there's a TL/DR you could provide or just screen shot the part you want us to see? Is there part of it where he says Tatum is coming back this season? That can't be possible since he published the paper in 2024 and Tatum tore his achilles in 2025

3) If you think he should come back when he's healthy and cleared, sure that's fine. But we have no idea when that is going to be. No one has a crystal ball here and Brad said there is no timeline for Tatum to return. What we do know is that:

a)
b) Brad says no timeline for his return and if the season starts in 2 weeks, that probably means he's not playing this season
c) iirc, the last time we had a guy injured and Brad kept saying we had no timeline for his return, was Gallinari who sat out an entire season with torn ACL

4) There's not an arbitrary time that realgm posters say Tatum should wait until he should come back. Basically every torn achilles injury ever, the guy missed a full season..Dame is out for the season..so is haliburton, who both tore their achilles around the same time as Tatum. KD missed a full season and KD himself was quoted over the summer saying that "you're gonna miss a year" when talking about the guys who just tore their achilles (Tatum, Hali, Dame)

5) I'd also add that whenever Tatum is cleared and hits all his benchmarks, we should probably wait another month or 2 after that to put him back in a game. Why? It's called a precaution. When teams are extra cautious bringing a player back from injury - just to be sure, just to be on the safe side. As the saying goes, it's better to be safe than sorry. Better to wait another month or 2, and just keep having him rehab and do some light stuff in practice than take the chance that *maybe* we put him back out there in a game too soon and he re-injures it.

Times when teams have a tendency to be more cautious and bring a play back a bit later, even after they're cleared:
-When the team is not a legit title contender (if they're not a legit title contender, why bother? Mine as well wait and shut him down for the rest of season as teams have done in recent years with guys like Suggs, Holmgren, Wemby, Cade, Fox, Ja, Luka, Kyrie, AD, Kawhi, KD, etc.) notice most of those guys are franchise cornerstones / stars which leads to the next one
-When the player is a star / franchise cornerstone. When this is the case, there's more to lose if the player re-injures himself so teams often are more cautious and wait another month (or more) before bringing a guy back to the lineup
-When it's a really injury prone player

Tatum is not injury prone but we're not title contenders this season and Tatum is definitely a franchise cornerstone, on the richest contract in NBA history

6) We also have to factor in the timing here. Let's say he's cleared to return in February/March. Well, let's think about it here. Is it really wise to throw a guy out there on the floor in the middle of the season, who's coming off a torn ACL, has had no training camp to get ramped up and ease himself into the season and go out there where the first games he is playing in are high intensity games where the other 9 guys on the floor are all guys who did have a training camp, and have already played like 50 games each so they're playing at a different level, a different speed, a different physicality. He's out there playing in games with 9 guys who are in mid season form..he's out there with all guys who eased themselves into the season, eased their way from 0 to 60, while Tatum is gonna have to just go out there and try to magically be right there at 60 without being able to ease his way into it. All the other players will be running up and down the floor at full speed with no problem at all because they've gotten used to it over the course of training camp, preseason and 50 reg season games. Tatum won't have any of that but he'll have to try and go out there and compete right away at 60..that might be too strenuous, he might be having to over exert himself and then might pull a muscle, re-injuring it.

Like a car that is built to slowly get from 0 to 60. If you try to just floor it and get from 0 to 60 in like 2 seconds, you'll probably blow out the engine.

Sorry if this is over-explaining but it kind of seems like that is needed here. I figured everyone would have understood this stuff, which is why you simply don't see guys come back late in the season from an injury of this level of severity.

Like Holmgren for example, I think he was cleared medically in like Feb/March but they didn't bring him back into lineup until opening night of the following season..because of the reasons I just mentioned. I believe it was same thing with KD..think he was cleared in like March but the quote I saw it said he was like no way man, I ain't going out there trying to play my first game when all these other guys are high intensity mode battling each other for playoff spots.

[bucknersrevenge]

I think he'll be back this year but that's just because I think so. Obviously we won't really have an idea where he's at until the beginning of February. I think the doctors will clear him before this season ends. I understand him, his family, his trainer, the medical staff, and the organization will all weigh in on what makes the most sense here, but we also know that the final decision will be Jayson's. If he clears every hurdle because he is focused on his rehab, there really isn't anything that will stop him. I believe that is the scenario that will likely unfold. Fans are going to be upset by this. Writers will write about how they don't like the risk.

And Tatum's going to do it anyway because THAT is who Tatum is.

I definitely agree with you & yet i really hope you are wrong lol.

lol Totally fair.

[pac213up]

Barring a rehab setback it is fairly clear Tatum is going to be back at some point this season and it is looking like he will be back sooner than most fans will feel comfortable with.

[bucknersrevenge]

Barring a rehab setback it is fairly clear Tatum is going to be back at some point this season and it is looking like he will be back sooner than most fans will feel comfortable with.

Agreed. And I get those people who are not comfortable with it and understand why it makes them uncomfortable. But the people, the beat writers, the talking heads that just flat out say Tatum won't be back are just burying their heads in the sand for no reason. There's just nothing to support the assertion that he won't be back sometime this year in some capacity. I mean, ZERO evidence suggests he won't after all we have seen up to this point. Could circumstances change? Absolutely. But if things stay on their current line, he WILL be back regardless of who likes it and who doesn't.

[bisme37]

[ryan in Maine]

i don't think i wanna hear about JT doing box jumps lol.

[Fierce1]

Watch on YouTube

They say February.

Before that, these guys said no way Tatum playing this season.

[Fierce1]

"He's coming," Cassell said. "Everybody's counting him out. I don't know his plan for returning this season, but I like what I see so far. He's not on crutches, he's not hopping around. He's active. Jayson Tatum, he heals fast. He's not a guy who gets hurt and sits down. He may miss a day or two, but he doesn't like missing games."
https://www.yardbarker.com/nba/articles/celtics_assistant_provides_update_on_jayson_tatum/s1_13132_42839184

[Parliament10]

[GrandTheftRondo]

Sorry but I don’t want to see him near a court this season.

This whole we can be better than people think notion is complete BS too.

I don’t care about this season enough at all to potentially jeopardise Tatum’s career any further by rushing him back so the Celtics can get their ass whooped in an ECF or something with this mediocre roster and Tatum.

It’s already bad enough that he ruptured his Achilles. No amount of spin, talk of crazy recovery etc will change that fact.

[Hal14]

Interesting..

Watch on YouTube

[bisme37]

Read on Twitter

[djFan71]

Read on Twitter

Man, does Brad not pay him enough? Sad he has to get a second job to make ends meet.