00:00How much do you increase their ceiling if he's back?
00:03And we don't know if it'll be February, March, April.
00:06We don't know.
00:06Yeah.
00:07But how much does it increase their ceiling when they're back?
00:10Because we talked about this a little bit yesterday in Pure Hoops with Terp.
00:13Yeah.
00:13He's like, well, don't expect anything out of Tatum.
00:15He's not going to be the same guy.
00:16No, but that's fine.
00:17I think it's still.
00:18He's not going to be the same guy.
00:19No, but it increases it significantly.
00:21Yeah.
00:21If you're the three or four seed without him.
00:23Yeah.
00:23Even if he's, you know, I don't want to say a shell of himself, but even if he's not the same guy,
00:27shouldn't that increase your expectations for this team?
00:30In a wide open East Tatum off of an Achilles injury this season, better or worse than
00:34Josh Minot better, better or worse than Jordan Walsh better.
00:37Okay.
00:37So like right away, those are already rotational guys, starters for God's sakes.
00:41So if you're adding a starting caliber player now, I would say he's probably better than
00:46everybody, but the current version of Jalen Brown.
00:48Yeah, exactly.
00:49Right.
00:49I was just going to say, he's going to be more valuable.
00:53Now, maybe, you know, I think it'd be crazy to play him 40 minutes.
00:56You don't need to do that.
00:57But if you have a guy like Tatum playing 24 minutes, even like what an advantage that
01:01is to you.
01:02And then when you factor in the landscape of the Eastern Conference being very wide
01:05open, like the Knicks are the best team or the Pistons are the best team.
01:09Okay.
01:09They've already had good battles with the Pistons without Tatum.
01:12Yeah.
01:12Just add them to the mix.
01:13Now, I think it'd be unfair to be like, here comes a 30 point per game, eight rebounds,
01:18six assist guy.
01:19Like, no, no, no.
01:19That that's too much right, right away.
01:22But somebody that can help your team and better than anybody you could possibly get at the
01:25trade deadline.
01:26Yes.
01:26You just said right away too.
01:27This is why, I mean, if you think he's coming back the last week of the regular season,
01:30then I really would have no expectations for him in the postseason.
01:33If he comes back in February.
01:35Sure.
01:35And I don't know, some signs, I don't want to say all signs, but some signs are pointing
01:39to that.
01:40If he's back in February, okay, he might look like a certain player in February, then a
01:45different player in March.
01:46What will he look like in April?
01:47What will he look like in the playoffs?
01:48Like, I don't know.
01:50I think the earlier he comes back, obviously that gives him a better chance to find his
01:53footing.
01:54I'm not saying rush him back, but once he's cleared, there's no point in holding him out.
01:57As long as he's okay with it.
01:59And it sounds like he wants to do it.
02:00Yeah.
02:00Once he's cleared, there's no benefit to holding him out.
02:02He's cleared.
02:03Yeah.
02:04So if he's cleared in February, get him back out there, play through the rust, rest him
02:09on back to max and manage him and everything else manages minutes.
02:12And then he might look like not vintage Jason Tatum, but a pretty good approximation of that
02:18when you're hitting the floor in the postseason.
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