Jayson Tatum is not tipping his hand.
It doesn’t matter how many Celtics games NBC flexes into their primetime schedule, or how much his docuseries on his recovery is promoted, Tatum is proving that he might be as good a poker player as he is a basketball player.
“I do not have a [return] date,” he told reporters in Los Angeles (via CLNS) on Saturday. “Like I said, I just take it one day at a time. I feel better than I did yesterday, and that's most important.”
However, like Teddy KGB’s Oreos, the fact that Tatum is talking is his tell. As has been mentioned a few times by now, players planning on returning are required to speak to the media every week after they return to practice, and that happened at the beginning of last week. Tatum has now chatted with the media twice.
Not that he’s saying anything ground breaking. No matter how anyone asks, Tatum is going to duck and swerve and avoid the answer.
Maybe poker wasn’t the right analogy. Maybe it should be dodgeball.
What does your body have to feel like for you to come back?
“Uhhh, 100%.”
Have you imagined what that would feel like, and how close do you feel like you are to that?
“I mean, I know what 100% feels like. And when that time comes, I’ll be ready.”
What percentage are you now?
“Uhh, I don’t know yet.”
Even Tatum understands this is getting repetitive at this point.
“I feel like I’m beating a dead horse,” he said. “Just taking it one day at a time. It’s very serious, the injury that I had. It’s a long journey, so for me it’s just a lot easier to just take it one day at a time and see how I progress.”
It’s a fair point to make. The best way to get any morsel out of him is, maybe, to get him talking about one of the other NBA stars coming back from the same injury.
Damian Lillard was ruled out of the season, but he hurt himself before Tatum did, so he’s in a very similar place in his rehab. He clearly felt good enough to run from rack to rack in the three-point shootout at All-Star weekend. He shot the lights out and won the event.
“I know it probably just felt good to put a uniform on and feel normal,” Tatum said. “I’m certain it just kind of felt good to be out there again and obviously compete and win.”
That's an important element to all of this, and probably why Tatum isn’t pushing it. He wants to get on the floor and feel normal again, to compete like he’s used to competing. Yes, the Celtics are posting pictures of him looking like Jayson Tatum, and Ron Harper Jr. can say he looks like Jayson Tatum, but does Tatum feel like himself?
Once that answer is yes, then he can get to the answer everyone is waiting for.
Will you come back and play?
“I think it's just important that I worked this hard to just kind of get myself in a position where it could be a conversation,” he said. “I think we've done a really good job of that thus far.”