Bill Simmons predicts Jayson Tatum’s comeback game

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Bill Simmons predicts Jayson Tatum’s comeback game

Souichi Terada · MassLive

Mon, Feb 16, 2026 ·

2 min read

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While the All-Star game was ongoing Sunday, midway through the night, NBC dropped a 90-second trailer . The clip featured behind-the-scenes, exclusive footage of Jayson Tatum talking about his rehab from his ruptured Achilles tendon.

The video had people buzzing about Tatum’s potential comeback. While the team and Tatum haven’t said if or when he could come back, outsiders are starting to read between the lines. The Ringer’s Bill Simmons gave his prediction on when Tatum could return on his podcast following the All-Star game.

“Had been hearing first week of March for a while, that it was going to be somewhere around that March 4, March 6 game,” Simmons said. “It’s really starting to look like March 1 or March 6. My money would be on March 1 for him.”

Notably, that March 1 game is against the 76ers at TD Garden in Boston. NBC already announced that game was going to be flexed from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. to be part of a national broadcast . That’s part of the speculation that could be a potential Tatum target date.

Tatum said, early on, that whenever he does return to the court, his first game will be in Boston. That March 6 game that Simmons mentions is also a marquee home game against Maine native Cooper Flagg and the Mavericks.

Those potential comeback games are still a couple weeks away. The Celtics come out of the All-Star break with four games on the road as part of a West Coast swing. But it does seem like Tatum’s return could be soon despite there being nothing official out there yet from him or the team.

The latest public Tatum update is that he practiced with the Maine Celtics, the team’s G League affiliate, back on Feb. 9. Two-way teammate Ron Harper Jr., who was part of that practice, said Tatum looked like himself . But until he’s back on the court, it remains to be seen how Tatum looks compared to his All-NBA self.

“I’m feeling good,” Tatum said Feb. 10. “It was good to be a part of practice with the Maine G League guys. … It’s been a long journey. And it’s just like the progression of rehab. It was the next step. Doesn’t mean that I’m coming back or I’m not. It’s just following the plan. So it’s just another step.”

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