Celtics get bad news on Jayson Tatum's injury return

All season long, it's been assumed that Jayson Tatum would return at some point from his torn Achilles recovery to bolster the Boston Celtics.

But some doubt has been thrown into the picture with the latest news from NBA insider Chris Haynes.

"It was always a foregone conclusion that Tatum was going to try and give it a go at some point during the season after suffering that Achilles tear," Haynes said Wednesday night. "League sources just informed me that Jayson Tatum is now re-evaluating his situation, and it's up in the air if he's going to return at all this season."

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That would be a big twist in the tale for Boston, which has played very well without Tatum and was likely looking at Tatum as the equivalent of a massive trade deadline acquisition that could only make them better.

"There are a couple of factors as to why he's reached this point," Haynes said, "but as of right now, that changes the whole landscape. Tatum even told me personally months back that he was getting ready to return."

The most likely conclusion here is that there's been some sort of setback in Tatum's injury recovery, but there's no way to know for sure.

He tore his Achilles in the first round of the playoffs, and it's an injury that classically was viewed as a 12-month recovery, so the initial speculation when he got hurt was that Tatum may make it back for this season's playoffs.

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But as the chatter got going this season, dates as early as February or March were thrown out as possible Tatum return points. That got fans particularly excited, because it suggested Tatum's recovery was going well.

Now, it's a lot harder to figure out what might be going on. But the reality is that there's a lot more doubt as the calendar heads toward February than Celtics fans would've been hoping for.

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