Jayson Tatum has been at most of the Celtics games this season, home and away.
Jayson Tatum has been at most of the Celtics games this season, home and away.Danielle Parhizkaran/Globe Staff
Last September, just four months after rupturing his Achilles tendon in the Eastern Conference semifinals against the Knicks, with a long road to recovery still ahead, Celtics forward Jayson Tatum made it clear he did not know when he would play in a game again.
He did not know if it would be this season or next, and he did not know what the ensuing months would bring. But one aspect of his return, whenever it happened, was never up for debate.
“I know one thing,” he told the Globe then. “My first game back will be at home. It will be in TD Garden. It probably will be emotional, but it’s something I’m looking forward to, just running through that tunnel and being on the court again with all of our fans and sharing that moment with them.”
Now, it appears that Tatum has stayed true to his word, and that the moment may have arrived.
On Thursday afternoon, Tatum was upgraded to questionable for Friday’s game against the Mavericks, putting him in position, barring setbacks, to make his season debut.
With Tatum out, and with a good portion of the 2023-24 championship roster gutted, widespread suggestions arose that the Celtics might take a gap year and essentially wait for Tatum to come back fully healthy next season.
Instead, the Celtics have emerged as a contender. Now, if Tatum even comes close to regaining his All-Star form by the time the postseason arrives, anything will be possible.
But the forward’s level of effectiveness remains to be seen. Tatum has insisted for months that he simply wanted to put himself in position to decide whether he would be back this season, and that he would not take the court unless he felt 100 percent healthy.
“It’s a long journey,” Tatum said before a workout in Los Angeles last month. “You can’t rush it. You’ve got to take your time and move at your own pace and not really compare yourself to other guys. Everybody’s different. So you just have to run your own race.”
For months, Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla mostly deflected questions about Tatum’s status and how he intended to integrate him whenever he rejoined the team. The front office also has mostly brushed off any suggestion that Tatum’s return could hinder this strong season.
“Obviously, any team with Jayson Tatum is going to be better,” president of basketball operations Brad Stevens said last month.
Still, there could be an adjustment period. Despite some slippage recently, All-Star forward Jaylen Brown is in the midst of an MVP-caliber season and has declared several times that this has been the most enjoyable year of his career.
Will Tatum look to complement Brown, or will he want to quickly reclaim his role as the team’s No. 1 option?
During a January podcast appearance, Tatum sounded reluctant about coming back and potentially disturbing the Celtics’ increasing momentum. But during an interview session in Boston later, he said that was simply a moment of vulnerability.
“I know what I bring to the table and bring to the team, but I’m also aware that these guys have been playing extremely well,” he said. “And not to say that I would come and mess it up or anything like that. It was just kind of being vulnerable, I guess, for a moment, and talking from that perspective.”
Tatum will surely be on a minutes restriction when he comes back, perhaps for the entire season. But the hierarchy will nonetheless be interesting to monitor.
Anticipation about Tatum’s return began to build over the last two months. On Jan. 19 in Detroit, he completed a rare workout in front of media during the team’s pregame shootaround at an area high school.
Sources insisted that Tatum was not trying to send a message by sharing this glimpse of his progress, but the optics lingered anyway.
Then on Feb. 9, the Celtics announced that Tatum had been recalled to practice with the team’s Maine G League affiliate at the Auerbach Center. A source said this was done partly because the Celtics rarely practice during the season, but also because their workouts tend to be light when they do practice, and the team wanted him to get in a real full-court workout.
Two weeks ago, NBC announced that it was releasing a five-episode docuseries chronicling Tatum’s return, with the short segments being shown over a multiweek span. But the pace of those releases increased dramatically this week, with three episodes dropping over four days.
Tatum has attended most Celtics games, home and away, for months. But he has been a more visible presence at TD Garden recently, looking upbeat as he sits at his locker after games, sometimes laughing and joking with team staffers.
All the while, most of his work has been transpiring behind closed doors.
“He looks good,” guard Derrick White said after Wednesday’s loss to the Hornets. “Playing, moving, it’s been good to see him back and getting up and down. So, you kind of see all the work he’s put in to get to this point, and it’s been great to see him be able to do what he loves to do.”
Adam Himmelsbach can be reached at adam.himmelsbach@globe.com. Follow him @adamhimmelsbach.