Why Jayson Tatum’s Comeback Could Supercharge Boston’s Championship Chase

Editor’s note: This first appeared in the Open Floor newsletter, a free, twice-weekly publication straight to your inbox. Subscribe now.

Welcome back to Open Floor, from Boston, where Jayson Tatum watch has reached a fever pitch. Tatum is officially listed as available by the Celtics and the expectation is that the All-NBA forward will make his season debut on Friday against Dallas, returning to the floor just under 10 months after tearing his Achilles tendon. I’ll have a dispatch from the game up Friday night so keep an eye out for that.

Evan Turner, the ex-Celtics forward, is in to discuss Jayson Tatum’s impending return, what the expectations should be and how quickly Tatum will fit back into a team that has been rolling this season. Plus what to make of the Hornets’ midseason surge and how much should we be reading into the recent rift between Luka Dončić and JJ Redick.

And speaking of Turner, we begin with his thoughts on Tatum’s return …

Last May, during Game 4 of the Eastern Conference semifinals against the New York Knicks, Jayson Tatum crumbled to the Madison Square Garden floor. His right Achilles tendon was torn. His season was over. The next season was over, too. Or so we thought.

Ten months after the injury, Tatum is poised to return to the Boston lineup. It’s a remarkable recovery from what is typically a yearlong rehab process. DeMarcus Cousins, Klay Thompson and Kevin Durant are recent examples of players who have taken 12 months or more to return to the court. Dejounte Murray, who recently returned to the Pelicans’ lineup, took 13. Tatum’s timeline is not only accelerated, he is jumping back on to a team in the thick of a playoff race. And one that believes it can win a championship.

Evan Turner, the 10-year NBA veteran who coached Tatum for one season in Boston, joined me on the Open Floor podcast to discuss all things Tatum in advance of his return.

(This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.)

Chris Mannix: Ten months. This is a remarkably quick comeback from this type of injury. No one would have begrudged Jayson Tatum if he sat out the entire season. Why do you think he is coming back?

Evan Turner: I just think he really loves the game. I think he really loves to hoop. Even the one year that I coached him or being around him, I used to be like, “Damn, you going to go do more basketball stuff?” I think he really misses it. You have basketball players and you have hoopers, and I just think it’s in his system.

CM: Coming back to a good situation, too.

ET: He has a perfect team right now to come back in, fit in, blend in, use his talent. You got Jaylen Brown kind of handling some of that isolation stuff until he gets his legs under him. But no matter what, you’re going to have to have some training wheels on at a certain point and eventually take it off. But one thing I do know about Tatum is he’s a savant. I talked to him one time. I said, “Hey, bro, don’t second-guess this. This is your gift. This is what you do.” If I tore my Achilles, I sit out. Chris, if you tore your Achilles, you sit out. God gave certain people gifts and they ain’t got nothing to do with us. And I remember talking to him and just being like, “Hey, second-guess on if you want to get married, second-guess on if you want a white or black Rolls-Royce. This hoop s---, you’ve been doing it since you were a kid. Don’t ever second-guess that. This is what you do.” And certain people got touched and God touched him twice and he works really hard with that.

CM: I think the position the Celtics are in is a factor here, too. Boston is 41–21. If they are 21–41, is he coming back? I doubt it. But what do you think are realistic expectations?

ET: Prime Khris Middleton.

CM: Oh yeah?

ET: Yeah. Someone who can help you win a championship and operate from a certain spot of the floor. He has some go-to moves that are just unstoppable. At the very least, he’s going to throw that bad boy in the rim. This is the same dude that got 50 points three times in a month. So I think at very least, even if he had a third option type of vibe, it’d be an impactful 18 or 19 points. But killers wake up when it’s crunch time, too. So we got to mark that in as well.

I see something as well as that. I don’t know if his rebounding will be as great right away, but he’s so long athletically, I think he’ll be pretty good defensively if he’s just closing out playing in the right situations. But I think no matter what, when he’s on the court, the trajectory of the court’s going to change because you’re always going to have to worry about him being a threat.

CM: There’s going to be some bumps. I think the mental hurdle is the biggest one to get over. This wasn’t a knee injury where you land awkwardly or getting hurt after a hard fall. Achilles tears, they don’t happen that way. Tatum tore his Achilles because he stepped one way in an awkward direction and it snapped. Tyrese Haliburton, same thing, trying to get a push off a bad calf, tore it up. Damian Lillard, same type of situation. These are basic everyday plays. I think there’s a mental part, mental hurdle that you’ve got to get over when you get out there on the floor. And no amount of five-on-five is going to prepare you for that.

ET: I’ll say this, I mean, look who’s averaging 12 or 15 points on that team. No disrespect to them, but I think Tatum is going to get them ... My man Neemias Queta damn near average a double-double. Shout out to Queta. But I think Tatum might be able to get three or four more shots to him.

CM: The whole Jayson/Jaylen, Whose team is it? debate. It gets people in Boston heated. I said this week Tatum knows he’s stepping onto Brown’s team. And I knew the second I said it, I had stepped into it. My point was, he’s stepping into a different team. He’s not just stepping back into a team, going into training camp and getting ready to play the same type of way they played before. This team plays a little bit differently. This team has some new pieces, some new faces on this roster.

And this team does have Brown who is having an MVP-caliber season. Brown is leading the NBA in shot attempts this year, right around 22 attempts per game. He is, I think, in the top five or top six in the MVP balloting. I think he’s probably going to wind up in that Tatum spot on the All-NBA first team. He’s having an outstanding year. And when I say he’s stepping into a different team and that he’s going to have to find a way to fit in, I’m really just echoing what he said.

Tatum was the one that was out there saying, “I’m a little worried about disrupting the chemistry of this team.” So what about the fit? How do you think Tatum coming back changes things for Boston? Is it all positive or do you think there’s going to be any kind of growing pains for a player of this caliber kind of stepping back into a different role in this team?

ET: I think the first couple weeks, minutes restrictions, everything else is understood. I think he might struggle with that because obviously when you thrive at such a high level, you have to give yourself time as well and patience. And I think the hardest part for him is going to be like, “Hey, 20 minutes. I’ve never averaged 12, 13 points in a quarter, let alone a game.” So I think that might be the hardest part. I think the Celtics, after being around them and knowing them, they know who the alpha is. I think they are very excited to have Jayson back. I think they know what it means for him to be on a court with him.

CM: I agree.

ET: I don’t think in the first couple games, he’s going to be able to close out certain games or maybe even be in at the end of the games. I think who gets the last shot right now or whatever else, I think that’s a small conversation to really be had more so than approaching it in a grateful way. This is the best situation possible. They got off the most expensive team in history. They were supposed to be on the tank slide. Thought everybody was going to be terrible. A bunch of unproven players have shown up and your Robin has held the fort down. It’s like a mob boss going in and you’re coming back out and being like, “Yo, all our stuff is still here.”

When I talk to Tatum, I’m like, “Hey, stop with all that nice s---, I fit in s---. This is your time. Boston’s your s--- and this is your team and it’s a team atmosphere. When you come out, come out like a mob boss talking about, ‘Yo, I’m up. Just let me get my breath under me and we Gucci.’” That’s literally how this thing should be because at the end of the day, I think everybody in that culture and that organization are locked in to what’s next in the championship banner. I just think that’s the mindset over there.

CM: And I would think Brown is going to welcome Tatum back. I think Brown understands that the best chance this team has of winning a championship is getting whatever you can get out of Tatum down the stretch and in the playoffs. I mean, Jaylen has been outstanding this year, brilliant from start to finish. And this team’s offensive rating, being what it is, is one of the most remarkable accomplishments I’ve seen given what they’ve lost. Not just Tatum, but Al Horford, Jrue Holiday, Kristaps Porziņģis. The pieces that have been stripped away and they’re still playing offense at a high level. But I was at the game on Wednesday, I was watching the game last Sunday. Brown sat out the game on Monday to rest. He’s played a lot of minutes. He’s logged a lot of miles. You think he’s not going to welcome back a guy that can get a bucket and it’s not going to be in isolation situations all on him?

ET: Or even real attention. I’m just talking about just real attention, like being like, “Hey, bro, I’m getting tired of shooting pull-up jumpers with three people around me. Just give me a little bit more space so I can go back to my right hand.” I think they’re going to come back the right way. And the whole thing is just being like, “Hey, we got bigger fish to fry.” So it ain’t about whose team it is in Boston. It’s about going up against New York, going up against Detroit, keeping that supremacy and that reign in the Eastern Conference and that fear up as well.

CM: I’m glad you said that because to put a button on all this, Tatum’s coming back, you got about five weeks to go. If he comes back, has a good ramp up, looks like 75%, 80% of what he was. Is there a team in the Eastern Conference that you would pick to beat Boston in the playoffs?

ET: No, not at all. I want to give Detroit their credit because obviously they played well this whole year. I think they’re pretty tough in general. I think when it comes down to toughness and you got to mix in toughness with skill, Boston’s as tough as you get. And when it comes down to experience, you can just never go against experience. You know what I mean? Big-game experience. Your top four has been in multiple championship runs. So I don’t see a team really beating them unless your boys in Charlotte stay hot.

More NBA from Sports Illustrated

Listen to SI’s NBA podcast, Open Floor, below or on Apple and Spotify. Watch the show on SI’s YouTube channel.