The next several weeks will have Celtics fans watching for Easter eggs, and not because we've entered Lent.
Jayson Tatum made headlines over All-Star Weekend, despite injury sidelining him, with a commercial promoting 'The Quiet Work.' It's a docuseries chronicling his return from the Achilles rupture he suffered against the Knicks in the second round of the 2025 NBA Playoffs.
With Tatum remaining mum on whether or not he’ll even return this season, does the series offer any clues?
Here’s something worth considering: according to Tatum’s YouTube page, the series will air on Sundays in five parts, sandwiched between NBC’s East Coast and West Coast ‘Sunday Night Basketball’ games.
The debut episode airs February 22, and assuming each episode airs just weekly, that would put the final installment at March 22. The Celtics are scheduled that night to face the Minnesota Timberwolves at 8 p.m., on NBC, at TD Garden.
For the sake of this exercise, let’s say that’s the return date. From a production standpoint, it would make sense for Tatum to come back following the final episode of his series, and he’s already expressed his desire to return at home. The March 22 date would allow for a lot more 5v5 work – with the actual Boston Celtics – before getting back in real game action, but it would give Tatum just a dozen NBA games before the playoffs begin.
Longtime Celtics insider Steve Bulpett made waves when he noted, on X, how NBC flexed Celtics-Sixers into prime time on March 1. It’s easy to understand why fans jumped on this schedule change as a signal that Tatum could come back. He had just taken an obvious step forward in his recovery journey, having participated in 5v5 and in portions of the Maine Celtics practice at the Auerbach Center last week. Tatum spoke to media right after the practice, as the league mandated, but said that step didn’t indicate whether or not he’s returning this season.
Let’s be realistic about the other game that got flexed out: the Oklahoma City Thunder are the reigning NBA champs, but their opponent, the Dallas Mavericks, are ranked 12th in the Western Conference and Kyrie Irving just announced he doesn’t plan to come back from his ACL tear this season.
That one wasn’t exactly going to be a barn burner.
Now, let’s really go down the rabbit hole. Do ticket prices tell us anything? According to StubHub, the aforementioned March 1 game has a get-in price of $149 a ticket, an above-average cost, (the Charlotte Hornets game three days later has an $89 price tag). Curiously, March 6 against the Mavs, (remember how bad they are), has a get-in price well over $200 a ticket.
Is that attributable to Maine native Cooper Flagg coming to TD Garden? Possibly. It’s also a Friday night game, which is more convenient for most fans than, say, a Wednesday.
After combing through a few of these dates, it doesn’t look like there’s any big indicator there.
Tatum also reportedly told ESPN NBA insider Ramona Shelburne he truly hasn’t decided whether he’s coming back this season. Indiana Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton, who tore his Achilles a few weeks after Tatum, isn’t playing at all this year – but that’s a decision the club declared before the season started.
Both Haliburton and Tatum will be fascinating test cases for future (unfortunate but realistic) Achilles ruptures: they’re 25 and 27, respectively.
According to Mass General Brigham, the injury is most common in men in their 30s and 40s. Kevin Durant was 30, Kobe Bryant was 34, and Dominique Wilkins was 32, when all three suffered the injury.
We’re largely in unchartered waters here, and that has to factor into the vagueness around what to expect.
The best guess as to when Tatum will be back has to tie directly to where he is in his rehabilitation process, and there’s still work left to be done.