Jayson Tatum’s eventual return from the ruptured Achilles he sustained last spring has dominated the discourse surrounding the Boston Celtics all season. “When is he coming back?” What’s the team’s ceiling with Tatum in the lineup?”
As the weeks go on, his season debut grows closer, though there’s been no true indication from him or the team as to when it’ll actually be. All fans have gotten is context clues.
The most significant to this point was Tatum’s assigned practice with Boston’s G-League affiliate, the Maine Celtics, which the organization was required to make public.
Aside from that, any updates have been purely speculatory, like the latest from Bill Simmons. Simmons shared some perhaps educated insight into how close the Celtics star’s return could be on Sunday’s episode of The Bill Simmons Podcast.
“Tatum, it feels like it’s going to be Friday against [the Dallas Mavericks],” Simmons told Zach Lowe. “That’s what -- all signs point to Friday, Dallas. I was wondering if it was going to be this weekend, but by Friday it was clearly not going to be.”
Not to over-analyze the podcast discussion, but there was some clear hesitation from Simmons when he went to explain his reasoning. It sure sounded like he was about to say “that’s what I’m hearing,” or, “that’s what I heard,” when talking about Friday.
Of course, there’s no way of knowing for sure, and this should all be taken with a grain of salt. Simmons isn’t reporting anything. In fact, he’s clearly trying to avoid making it seem like he is.
He may, however, be onto something.
Why did Tatum's production company drop ep. 3 of his docuseries early?
Another noteworthy Tatum-centric story over the past 24 hours has been the release of episodes 2&3 of his The Quiet Work docuseries, which gives fans a glimpse into his rehab process.
The debut episode dropped last Sunday, then the next a week later, in accordance with the weekly release plan that came with the docuseries’ announcement.
The anomaly here is the third episode, which was released on Monday, just a day after the second.
Hmm.
That’s not what the plan was, right?
Why would Tatum’s production company share the four-minute installment six days before it was scheduled?
Are they trying to get the whole series out before he actually takes the court for the first time?
Maybe.
Again, this is all speculation. There was no part of the series’ announcement that said the whole thing would be out by the time Tatum is back. It’s just a bit odd that Simmons shared his insight, and then there was a surprise early release for episode 3.