Tatum injury update
Jayson Tatum has been confirmed to have torn his Achilles at the end of game 4. Tatum was on a heater, barely keeping the team afloat before the injury, effectively ending the series. Tatum will almost certainly miss all of the 2026 season, leaving a ton of questions around him and the team immediate and long-term future.
How this affects Tatum
We'll start with questions around Tatum himself. This injury will likely take away some of his burst to the rim, which could affect his thought processing and may rely more on jumpers, which would be a massive downgrade to his game. Since 2022, Tatum has shot 35% on 9 threes a game, and in the playoff's he has averaged 34% on 8 attempts. No matter what, he cannot let this injury cause him to take more jump shots.
Another major concern is if this causes injury problems down the line. JT has been one of the most durable players in the league, never missing more than 10 games in a season, and never missing a playoff game until this season. Kevin Durant is an example of someone who was extremely durable before his Achilles tear but has routinely had injuries where he is missing 10-15 games ever since. Tatum will be much younger than Kd when he comes back, but it is still a concern to monitor nonetheless.'
Spotrac Celtics Capsheet - 2024
Celtics Payroll
How this affects the team
Here is the Celtics current payroll and how it aligns with the first and second apron. They are currently 6th in total apron allocations, at $199 million, according to Spotrac. Some contracts they will look to get off of include Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis. Neither will be easy, however. Jrue will be 35, with 2 more years and a player option left on his contract, and Porzingis will be on an expiring deal with next to no value after these playoffs and his overall injury history.
The 2025 offseason will be a retool with Tatum out. Assuming Jrue and Porzingis are moved, this will help the cap space, but another player almost certainly gone will be Al Horford. This is the final year of his contract and while he is still valuable, his play has slowly declined, and there is little reason to keep a player of his age during a retool/gap year. The Celtics starting 5 will look totally different in 2026, with Jaylen Brown and Derrick White likely being the only starters remaining.
The rest of the team will be changed marginally, but one piece that has to be addressed is the bench. The Celtics only go about 7 deep during the playoffs, and this will have to be improved upon with Tatum out. Payton Pritchard is a great 6th man, but Kornet and Hauser being the next best options cannot continue when they only provide small specific skillsets. Baylor Scheierman and Jordan Walsh could be potential names to watch, as they have both shown flashes of potential as good rotational pieces and cost next to nothing.
How does ownership affect the team
New ownership taking over is always a scary unknown for franchises, especially for a team that is in an odd spot like the Celtics, that have the key pieces to compete, but not next year and are in salary cap hell. We have seen 2 extremely recent examples of ownership destroying franchises in polar opposite ways. The Suns traded every asset for the rest of the decade for KD and Beal and it got them nowhere, and the Mavericks traded their franchise piece in Luka Doncic.
It is unlikely the Celtics new ownership would go to these drastic levels of change, but it cannot be ruled out, especially when the team was bought for a record breaking $6 billion. Billionaires want results, and if there is none and it costs a lot, change will happen quickly. We can only hope that new Celtics owner Will Chrisholm stays out of the way and lets Brad Stevens work his magic.