![\"Jayson](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/GettyImages-2258368064_c43db1-e1770411198112.jpg\")
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Jayson Tatum #0 of the Boston Celtics <\/p>\n
For the Boston Celtics<\/a>, it\u2019s been a busy week. Not only did the team make the difficult decision to ship out guard Anfernee Simons<\/a>\u2013who had become popular within the locker room for his play on the floor and willingness to learn and improve in practice\u2013but also did just enough to get themselves under the luxury-tax threshold. That\u2019s not all that important to fans in the short-term, of course, but it is important as far as freeing up more flexibility, whether on the buyout market or in free agency next summer.<\/p>\n The Celtics will bring in former All-Star center Nikola Vucevic<\/a>, who is still productive at age 35, as he averaged 16.9 points, 9.0 rebounds and 3.8 assists for Chicago this season. He is not expected to post those numbers in Boston, as he played 30.8 minutes for the Bulls<\/a> but will split time more evenly with Neemis Queta for the Celtics.<\/p>\n The Celtics also salary-dumped Josh Minott, Xavier Tillman and Chris Boucher on Thursday to get under the tax, but for the organization, the focus continues to be on the one guy the team might add back to the mix in the coming weeks: star forward Jayson Tatum<\/a>.<\/p>\n Jayson Tatum Has \u2018A Ways to Go\u2019<\/p>\n The notion of Tatum returning in the coming weeks has cooled lately<\/a>, as Tatum has acknowledged he might remain out the entire year, as he recovers from a torn Achilles tendon. Speaking to Celtics media on Friday, team president Brad Stevens said there\u2019s still hope for Tatum, but tempered that, as Tatum has done.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s hit a lot of the thresholds, he\u2019s doing more and more, and will continue to do more and more. He\u2019s still got a ways to go,\u201d Stevens said<\/a>.<\/p>\n That\u2019s a lot different than some of the early projections for Tatum\u2019s return, which included his father predicting he could be back on the floor for the Celtics as soon as nine months after his injury. That would put his return at next week, and it\u2019s clear that\u2019s not happening.<\/p>\n Indeed, if Tatum can\u2019t be back and ramping himself up in games by early or mid March, it\u2019s likely to be too risky to even try to bring him back.<\/p>\n Celtics Would Be Too Small for Playoffs<\/p>\n Stevens did say that the Celtics\u2019 decision to trade away the scoring pop that Simons brings on the perimeter had nothing to do with the anticipation that he\u2019d be replaced, eventually, by Jayson Tatum himself. It was more about needing more size to survive the playoffs.<\/p>\n \u201cI would say (Tatum\u2019s return) had very little impact on that singular decision. Just because, at the end of the day, kind of look at who you have to go through, the paths you might have to take, you have to\u2014you just can\u2019t get worn down, physically. And we were gonna be much smaller. Now we at least have big options,\u201d Stevens said.<\/p>\n \u201cObviously, any team with Jayson Tatum is going to be better. If that happens, that happens and if it doesn\u2019t it doesn\u2019t. So, we just thought that redistributing our positional needs was probably the most important thing. You hope that doesn\u2019t necessarily cost you a player of Anfernee\u2019s caliber, both as a person and a player. But obviously, to get a guy as accomplished as Vuc, you have to give something.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tSean Deveney<\/a> is a veteran sports reporter covering the NBA, NFL and MLB for Heavy.com. He has written for Heavy since 2019 and has more than two decades of experience covering the NBA, including 17 years as the lead NBA reporter for the Sporting News. Deveney is the author of 7 nonfiction books, including “Fun City,” “Before Wrigley became Wrigley,” and “Facing Michael Jordan.” More about Sean Deveney<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tMore Heavy on Celtics\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\tLoading more stories\n\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty Jayson Tatum #0 of the Boston Celtics For the Boston Celtics, it\u2019s been a busy week. Not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-277990","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}