Joe Mazzulla Gives Update on Jayson Tatum’s Recovery Amid Talk of Return to Celtics

The Celtics are one of the NBA’s big surprises this season, and could get even better if Jayson Tatum returns from his Achilles tear.

The superstar forward got hurt during last year’s playoffs and has remained a consistent presence on the Boston sidelines during his recovery process. There is no timetable for any return as of yet but whether he plays at all this season popped up as a surprise talking point over the last few days. On Wednesday night Tatum himself felt the need to weigh in, telling ESPN he hadn’t made a decision on when exactly he’ll be returning to the court.

On Thursday, coach Joe Mazzulla was asked about the whole situation and gave an update on Tatum’s recovery.

“There’s been zero setback,” Mazzulla said during a radio interview. “He’s progressing naturally. I’ve just trusted our sports science team and he’s got a great team around him, really just trusting that process. But he’s checking boxes. There’s checkpoints, obviously, that you have to go through [with] a rehab process. He’s hitting those and continuing to work.”

The Celtics have been fairly mum about those recovery checkpoints for Tatum. Mazzulla’s above quote is the first substantive information the organization has given out about his rehab since the season began. That, if anything, made all the talk about when he might get back on the court seem a bit premature this week— it doesn’t matter how he might impact the Celtics if he isn’t fully healthy. It is obviously great news for Boston that it’s going as planned. But at the same time he doesn’t sound very close to getting back to full-speed NBA play.

Mazzulla, for his part, brushed off any idea that Tatum coming back might be “disruptive” to this year’s Celtics team that has found ways to win without their star forward.

“I look at disruption as a positive. ... He knows that, if we’ll get him back, we’ll be a better team,” Mazzulla said. “There’s just no ifs, ands, or buts about that. To your question you should never be worried about disrupting in a negative way. He’ll be disrupting in a positive way because he’ll just make us better on both ends of the floor and already add to what we’ve been able to build here this season.”

Tatum’s teammates undoubtedly appreciate any hesitation he might feel about coming back and upsetting what has been a winning formula this year. But Mazzulla is right— the Celtics would be a better team with their All-NBA superstar out there.

For now, though, Tatum must finish rehab and fully recover before talks of his addition to the roster can be taken seriously.

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