Bill Simmons

You should be mindful of what it does to Jalen Brown as a player to introduce this huge variable when he has been able to dictate terms in ways that have been incredibly beneficial to him and wildly successful, given all of our expectations.

I would be mindful of that.

I would be mindful of Jason Tatum, as you said, like, is he going to be happy with this sort of arrangement?

It's really hard to ask a competitor who is that talented and that successful to, oh, you're just going to play 20 minutes a game.

You're going to be on these hard minutes limits, even as you work your way back, even for someone who I'm sure wants to be a part of it.

Talk to him after a competitive crunch time or fourth quarter where he's not allowed to play because he already hit his limit in that game.

So basically, you're trusting him to be responsible of his minutes.

You're trusting the Celtics coaching staff to be responsible of his minutes.

You're trusting every member of that roster to be so squarely in their zone in terms of role that they will understand what Tatum coming back means and doesn't mean.

There's just a lot of ways that a really successful season could just be upset all of a sudden.

I'm not saying don't do it.

If you have Jason Tatum available and he's healthy enough to play, he should play.

But these are huge variables for a team that, as you said, has basically strung all this together because they have overachieved, because they have tapped into something kind of magical in the alchemy of the group.

And now you're challenging the alchemy of the group.

Totally.

I mean, maybe that's a lofty ambition for them, but it is what they should at least think about embracing, right?

And I think they've been a different team when Jalen Suggs has been healthy.

They've been... Certainly, they've opened my eyes just with the Anthony Black emergence.

The wild card of him, yeah.

Oh my God, he's been incredible.