{"id":351947,"date":"2025-12-17T21:47:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T21:47:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/351947\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T21:47:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T21:47:07","slug":"brad-stevens-was-just-asked-to-estimate-jayson-tatums-return-date","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/351947\/","title":{"rendered":"Brad Stevens Was Just Asked To Estimate Jayson Tatum\u2019s Return Date"},"content":{"rendered":"

Boston Celtics<\/a> president of basketball operations Brad Stevens met with reporters on Wednesday and fielded questions on a variety of topics. The most intriguing area of discussion was Jayson Tatum.<\/p>\n

When asked to estimate a timeline for Tatum\u2019s return to the court, Stevens didn\u2019t offer one.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019re not putting a timeline on it, as we haven\u2019t the whole time,\u201d Stevens said, per CLNS Media<\/a>. \u201cHe\u2019s not gonna be back until he\u2019s 110 percent healthy, and he feels good about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, he\u2019s itching to play,\u201d Stevens added. \u201cObviously, he hates watching \u2026 but we\u2019ve had a lot of great talks about it \u2026 one of the things (I) love about this whole group \u2026 is they love to play.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Tatum\u2019s durability before his Achilles injury on May 12 was among the very best in the NBA as far as superstars are concerned. The Celtics have not one, but two durable superstars, considering the fact that Jaylen Brown has also been incredibly available throughout his career.<\/p>\n

Say what you want about the NBA\u2019s \u201cload management era\u201d, the Celtics\u2019 two franchise cornerstones have simply never participated in it, and that\u2019s something to admire.<\/p>\n

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Tatum\u2019s current situation is obviously a totally different situation. He\u2019s now seven-plus months removed from the injury, which has traditionally been a little over halfway through the rehab process for an Achilles tear.<\/p>\n

Times are a\u2019changin\u2019 in modern sports medicine, though, and nowadays, NBA guys like Miami Heat\u2019s Dru Smith have shown that you can come back from an Achilles after 10 or 11 months.<\/p>\n

Much has been made about the fact that Tatum had surgery<\/a> within hours of his injury, seeing as he was already in New York City, where his surgeon, Dr. Martin O\u2019Malley, was readily available. The swiftness of JT\u2019s operation and his relentless rehab regimen has put him in as good a position as possible to return in 2025-26.<\/p>\n

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Even so, it\u2019s still best to exercise caution. This is why you hear Stevens talking the way he does, and why Stevens and the rest of the Celtics\u2019 leadership has always maintained that there is absolutely no timeline for a Tatum return.<\/p>\n

The long-term health of Tatum is too important to risk, and the fact that the Celtics have been playing winning basketball without JT should only reinforce the idea that he should take his time coming back and guarantee way beyond a reasonable doubt that he\u2019s fully recovered, and then some.<\/p>\n

More NBA:<\/p>\n

Brad Stevens Reveals Celtics\u2019 Exciting NBA Trade Deadline Approach <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Boston Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens met with reporters on Wednesday and fielded questions on a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351948,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[113886,1222,21087,49,48,152760,152762,21091,3556,8224,459,82,152761],"class_list":{"0":"post-351947","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-achilles-injury","9":"tag-boston-celtics","10":"tag-brad-stevens","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-clns","14":"tag-dru-smith","15":"tag-jaylen-brown","16":"tag-jayson-tatum","17":"tag-miami-heat","18":"tag-nba","19":"tag-sports","20":"tag-the-celtics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}