Boston Celtics Make Announcement That Suggests Jayson Tatum Is Coming Back Friday

After a few weeks of publicly ramping up, it appears Jayson Tatum is about to return, even though nothing is official yet.

Oct 27, 2025; New Orleans, Louisiana, USA; Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum reacts during introductions during a game against the New Orleans Pelicans at Smoothie King Center. Mandatory Credit: Matthew Hinton-Imagn Images | Matthew Hinton-Imagn Images

The long wait for Jayson Tatum to return to the Celtics appears to be coming to an end. 

For the first time since his injury, the Celtics injury report lists Tatum as “questionable” to return, a standard upgrade for a player who is working his way back from a devastating injury. Generally, that means he’s returning, barring any sort of second thoughts or setback heading into the Friday night game against the Dallas Mavericks. 

This makes his return likely, but not official. He still has to go through his daily pregame routine before the Celtics make him fully available. However, barring a setback, we should expect him to play against the Mavericks. Whether he starts the game and what his minutes restriction might be is still in question.

Tatum has been building up to a return over the past few weeks, first officially returning to practice by scrimmaging the Maine Celtics at the Auerbach Center. 

“It was just kind of good to be out there, have a jersey on,” Tatum said of the scrimmage. “Just kind of felt good to be a part of a team and practice and go through reps and stuff like that.”

Ron Harper Jr., who participated in the scrimmage, said “He looked like Jayson Tatum, I’ll say that much,” during an interview at All-Star weekend. Jaylen Brown also said Tatum looked good in the scrimmages he’s seen. 

“He looked good, to be honest,” Brown said at All-Star media day. “He looks like he's progressing along. He's checking off all the right boxes. Obviously he needs to take his time to mentally, spiritually, emotionally make sure everything feels right before he makes any decisions. In terms of what I've seen, he looks pretty damn good.”

ESPN’s Shams Charania this week said Tatum is a “full go” in scrimmages with the Celtics, putting him squarely in the ramp-up phase of his recovery. That means the leg is fully healed and now it’s just a matter of getting his cardio up to NBA standards. That speculation only grew when the Celtics started including photos of Tatum scrimmaging on social media. 

"Mentally it's been tough. It's been exhausting,” Tatum told reporters about his rehab. “It's been a lot of different phases throughout this process. But the organization has been there to support me, friends, family, the whole nine. I’ve had a lot of support throughout this.” 

When the Celtics-Sixers game was flexed into NBC’s 8 p.m. spot, speculation raged that this would be Tatum’s debut, but that never materialized. An early March return made sense from the beginning of the process because it put him squarely in the 9-10 month return timeframe expressed when he first got hurt. Adding to the intrigue, Tatum announced a docuseries detailing his return, including behind the scenes footage, would begin airing on NBC. That was supposed to be a weekly series, but they suddenly released four of the five episodes in nine days.