Celtics
The Celtics were already staring at an offseason of change before Tatum's Achilles injury.
Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum (0) is carried off the court during the fourth quarter in game four of the NBA Eastern Conference semifinal against the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden.
Jayson Tatum could miss all of next season with the Celtics. (Danielle Parhizkaran/Globe Staff)
COMMENTARY
Jayson Tatum has been many things for the Celtics since first arriving in Boston in 2017.
A spark of hope for the future
A promising rookie who went toe to toe with LeBron James in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals
A rising superstar
A franchise fixture who helped Boston raise a sought-after 18th banner to the TD Garden rafters last year
But, through every stage of his lauded basketball career, Tatum has given Boston security and stability as one of the most durable stars in the game today.
As of Tuesday night, Tatum had appeared in 121 out of 122 career postseason games with Boston.
Since arriving in the league in 2017, no player in the NBA has played more minutes than Tatum. On top of that, no player is within 1,500 minutes — close to half a season worth of minutes — of Tatum’s total reps over the course of his career.
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For eight seasons, Tatum has been a constant, a beacon that signals sustained contention on the parquet floor for however long No. 0 was sinking 3-point shots.
That sentiment dissipated in short order Monday night at Madison Square Garden as Tatum dropped to the floor with a non-contact foot injury.
“He’s the type of guy that he gets right up,” Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla said Monday night after Tatum needed a wheelchair to get to Boston’s locker room. “So, he didn’t. And we’ll know tomorrow exactly what it is, but yeah, it’s tough to watch a guy like him get carried off like that.”
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Tuesday’s testing results realized Boston’s worst fears.
A ruptured Achilles tendon for Tatum has ended the 27-year-old star’s 2024-25 season — and could sideline him for a majority, if not all, of Boston’s 2025-26 campaign.
It’s a devastating development across several channels.
For a star operating at the height of his powers in Tatum, for a Celtics team once seemingly destined to win back-to-back titles this spring, and for the NBA landscape as a whole.
And, for a Boston fanbase now staring at an uncertain — and likely painful — future for a franchise once propped up with so much promise.
The short-term ramifications for the Celtics are fairly evident with Tatum now out of the equation.
Even with Tatum submitting one of the best performances of his career (42 points off 16-of-28 shooting, eight rebounds, four assists, four steals), a Celtics roster hampered by several other nagging ailments, a porous defense, and a stubborn offensive approach was dealt another critical defeat on Monday against the Knicks.
Boston now sits in a 3-1 series deficit against New York in the Eastern Conference Semifinals, with lineup regulars like Jaylen Brown, Derrick White, and an ailing Kristaps Porzingis now tasked with trying to keep their season alive without their top player.
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“I think everybody’s concerned with Jayson,” Brown said Monday. “I’m not sure how bad it is. Didn’t look great. But I think everybody is kind of more concerned with [the injury]. Obviously, the loss is huge.
“But we’ve got to get ready for Game 5, so we’ll take the night and pick our heads up tomorrow and put together a game plan to come out on our own floor to keep this series alive.”
Porzingis could find his second wind. Brown has the means to take over on offense. Boston has proven time and time again that it can sink its barrage of 3-point shots. Still, it remains to be seen if the Celtics can claw out of this 3-1 series hole.
Boston has not rallied back from a 3-1 deficit in a best-of-seven series since the 1981 Eastern Conference Finals, when Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parish reeled off three straight wins against the Sixers to punch Boston’s ticket to the NBA Finals.
Perhaps Brown can be this incarnation of McHale, with White carrying the scoring burden moving forward as Boston’s secondary option on offense.
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But the 2024-25 Celtics are now trudging forward without their own version of Bird — potentially for the foreseeable future.
Even if Boston has the talent and mettle to storm back and best the Knicks, the Celtics’ chances of making a push for Banner 19 with Tatum on the mend seem slim, at best.
Things are destined to become even more painful this offseason as Brad Stevens and the Celtics ponder their next moves, especially with Tatum potentially out for all of next season.
Achilles injuries may not be the career-ending ailment they were in the NBA just two decades ago. But, it won’t be an easy road back.
When a 30-year-old Kevin Durant tore his Achilles during the 2019 NBA Finals, he was out for the entire 2019-20 season. He eventually returned with the Brooklyn Nets during the 2020-21 season — in December, playing 35 total games that year.
Since that season, Durant has largely retained his form as one of the most effective scorers in the NBA, averaging 36.7 minutes, 28.0 points, and 6.6 rebounds per game over the last four years with Brooklyn and Phoenix.
Tatum could follow that same trajectory and avoid any sort of drop-off in his game. But, those results likely won’t translate on the court until the 2026-27 season.
That creates further headaches for a Celtics team that was already bracing for an inevitable roster overhaul this offseason.
Even if Tatum had a clean bill of health entering this summer, the Celtics, and incoming team owner Bill Chisholm, were likely already coming to grips with the fact that running back the same roster in 2025-26 would not be a sustainable move.
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As a result of the Celtics already operating in the second luxury-tax apron of the NBA’s revamped CBA, Boston is currently set to be hammered by sizable repeater tax penalties for next season.
According to ESPN’s Bobby Marks, the Celtics 2025-26 payroll is already projected to land around $233 million — more than $45 million over the projected luxury-tax threshold.
When factoring in the repeater-tax infractions, Marks projects that the Celtics will incur a luxury-tax bill of $280 million on top of the already $233 million payroll that the team was set to operate with.
That $513 million spend would be the biggest payroll and tax spend in NBA history by about $130 million, surpassing the $388 million that the 2023-24 Golden State Warriors were on the hook for.
Beyond those steep tax penalties, the Celtics are already hampered with several other restrictions by operating in that second apron.
These restrictions, as noted by The Boston Globe’s Amin Touri, also include:
Significant limits on trade exceptions, along with losing access to the taxpayer mid level exception
Losing the ability to trade first-round picks that are seven years in the future
An upcoming first-round pick being automatically moved to the end of the first round for any team that remains in the second apron for three years out of a five year period
Those costly repeater-tax penalties
These penalties — designed to punish teams that consistently operate well above the luxury tax threshold — will curtail just how long teams can push their chips onto the table in search of a title or two.
Tatum’s injury likely held no sway over whether or not the Celtics were going to cut payroll this summer.
But if Tatum is not going to hit the court at all in 2025-26, could Stevens and the rest of Boston’s top brass get even more aggressive in terms of dealing away contracts in what is now looking like a bridge year?
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The Celtics could look to dump contracts like Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis this summer, while Sam Hauser’s $10 million annual salary could also be moved in a cost-cutting measure.
If Tatum isn’t going to be an option and realistically contending isn’t an option for 2025-26, Stevens might get even more aggressive this offseason and move someone like Derrick White — or even Brown.
It would be a devastating end to a Celtics chapter that was seemingly just reaching its best days with Tatum and Brown at the helm.
But if the Celtics can push themselves below the $187 million luxury tax line for a year or two, retool their roster with younger assets, reset the repeater-tax penalties, and brace for a (hopefully) healthy return for Tatum in 2027, it could allow the team to open up a new contention window for the second half of Tatum’s career.
Perhaps Boston just stays the course in 2025-26, punching a ticket to the playoffs behind a reworked core of Brown, White, and Payton Pritchard.
All options seem to be on the table.
But no option is as palatable as the one where a healthy Tatum is serving as a constant conduit of success for Boston — regardless of the cast around him.
In a perfect world, Tatum is back in 2026-27, with the trials and tribulations born from a miserable night in New York on May 12, 2025 serving as a distant memory.
But when Tatum returns to the court amid cheers from a raucous TD Garden crowd, it’s anyone’s guess to which players — draped in green and white — will join him on the parquet.
Profile image for Conor Ryan
Conor Ryan
Sports Writer
Conor Ryan is a staff writer covering the Bruins, Celtics, Patriots, and Red Sox for Boston.com, a role he has held since 2023.
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