Jayson Tatum has yet to play in this 2025-26 NBA season for the Boston Celtics, and The Ringer’s Bill Simmons thinks we might see him in action soon enough. Tatum appears to be in the final stages of his rehab after tearing his Achilles in the playoffs last season, and Simmons explained on The Bill Simmons Podcast why he thinks the season debut will be against the Philadelphia 76ers on March 1.
“Celtics-Sixers on Sunday night, March 1st, moved from 6 to 8 PM,” Simmons said. “… Then randomly, during breaks between I think it was the third and the fourth [All-Star] game, a three-minute Jayson Tatum comeback…video about his journey set up in a way that made me super suspicious that NBC and him are working together in some way and this is all part of the thing.”
Tatum and NBC have teamed up to create a five-part docuseries titled “The Quiet Work.” It is about his return to basketball and will air every Sunday night on NBC during their Sunday Night Basketball games. The fact that we’re about to get this series and the NBA changed that 76ers game to a premium timeslot has many speculating that it will be the game where we see Tatum.
“When the flex thing happened, that was a red flag,” Simmons stated. “But then I looked at the schedule that night, and I was like, well, they said they were going to do stuff like this, and they’re moving the game two hours. That’s an awesome game, Boston and Philly. They didn’t know that that would be a great game.
“So maybe not, with that said, had been hearing first week of March for a while,” Simmons continued. “That it was going to be somewhere around that March 4th, March 6th game… It’s really starting to look like March 1st or March 6th. My money would be on March 1st now for him.”
Simmons noted that ticket prices on the resale market have shot up for the 76ers game and the one against the Dallas Mavericks on March 6. There is just way too much smoke here.
Tatum had previously declared he would try to play this season, but he hadn’t set any return date. The last big update we got about the 27-year-old was his being assigned to the Maine Celtics, the Celtics’ G League affiliate.
Tatum took part in a five-on-five practice and was then recalled. He looks to be ahead of schedule, considering he tore his Achilles on May 12 against the New York Knicks in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals. At the time, it had seemed like there was little to no chance that we would see him on the court in 2025-26.
We had also expected the Celtics to struggle in Tatum’s absence, but they haven’t. They are second in the East with a 35-19 record, giving him more motivation to return and potentially help them go on a deep playoff run.
We’re unlikely to see Tatum anywhere near his best, though, if he does return. The six-time All-Star averaged 26.8 points, 8.7 rebounds, 6.0 assists, 1.1 steals, and 0.5 blocks per game in 2024-25, but it will be a while before we see him put up those numbers again.
