All season long, the Boston Celtics have maintained the same stance about Jayson Tatum's potential return -- they haven't known if and when Tatum is returning in 2025-26. For reasons that aren't difficult to defend, this was the stance maintained by everyone from head coach Joe Mazzulla, to president of basketball operations Brad Stevens, to team president Rich Gotham over the past 10 months.
Now, with Tatum hours away from debuting, Mazzulla opened up during Friday's pre-game presser and basically admitted to having a feeling -- or even sound knowledge -- that Tatum would indeed step on an NBA court in 2025-26.
In response to a question posed by Boston Sports Journal's Jack Simone, Mazzulla revealed that the Celtics have known all along that Tatum was coming back this season.
“We always knew he was coming back this year," Mazzulla said. "I knew that when he decided to have surgery within a 16 hour span.”
Joe Mazzulla:
“We always knew he was coming back this year. I knew that when he decided to have surgery within a 16 hour span.”
(Q: @JackSimoneNBA) pic.twitter.com/okjs1sjcCq
— Noa Dalzell 🏀 (@NoaDalzell) March 6, 2026
You have to love the honesty from Mazzulla here. He realizes that no one will fault him or the Celtics' leadership from taking the stance they did over the past 10 months, as they did so to protect Tatum. At the same time, it's nice to hear Mazzulla simply stating the reality of the situation, which no longer provides any benefit in concealing.
When Tatum steps on the floor against the Dallas Mavericks on Friday night, it'll be the first time in 288 days that JT has played in an NBA game.
The roof might come off at TD Garden. Mazzulla has also announced that Tatum will be in the starting lineup, making it 707 starts out of 707 games for JT in his career thus far (regular season and playoffs).
More NBA:Bill Simmons Shares Unexpected Baylor Scheierman-Jayson Tatum Theory