Jayson Tatum's play has made it pretty easy to forget he's coming off an Achilles tear, typically a career-altering injury. The Boston Celtics star looked limited at first, but with each passing game, it's pretty clear that hardly anything is holding him back outside of reps.
Because the Celtics have gone 12-2 since he got back, it's somehow already become a distant memory that Boston traded Anfernee Simons, a trade that didn't sit well when it first happened two months ago. Because Nikola Vucevic has spent a good chunk of his Celtics tenure on the shelf (not his fault, as everyone knows), it's not like Boston has reaped the rewards from this deal.
However, Tatum's return has made everyone quickly forget about Ant, someone who didn't leave the best first impression in Boston, but once he figured himself out, he won over most of the fanbase.
The Celtics did a solid job between when they traded Simons and when Tatum returned, which was about a month, give or take, but the reason everyone has pretty much forgotten about Simons is Tatum, because Tatum took what would have been Simons' minutes.
The Simons trade was the first hint that Tatum's return was coming
Boston traded Simons in part to help their cap situation, but it's pretty easy to read the tea leaves beyond that. With Tatum on the verge of returning to the floor, someone's minutes were getting slashed, and it was pretty logical to conclude that Simons was the likely candidate.
Not because Simons was bad, but because: a. Payton Pritchard can play the same role Simons had to perfection (and has done so both before and after), and b. Boston had amazing two-way wing depth. That has more value than a microwave scorer, despite how impressive Ant was when he took the floor.
Despite his progress, Simons was still Boston's most expendable player. So when the trade happened, that was the first breadcrumb suggesting Tatum was returning. It's fair to say that the Celtics' belief that Tatum would not only make up for Simons' departure but also make the team better than ever at the best time was the right bet.
It really is a shame because Simons was a great story, and many were looking forward to seeing what he and Tatum would look like together. At the same time, the Celtics' peaking at the right time is what fans want to see more than anything.
If that came at the cost of trading Simons, so be it.