George and Tatum haven't shared a practice floor yet, and camp is already underway

The injury limbo that started in mid-July is still going. Tatum remains day-to-day, which means Paul George has spent his first weeks as a Celtic doing everything except the one thing that matters — playing alongside the man he was brought here to complement. Press conferences, media availability, public declarations of confidence. All of it useful, none of it a substitute for actual reps.

The timing is genuinely bad. This is a roster that has never played a minute together. George is new, Mike Conley Jr. is new, Mitchell Robinson is new. The core returning pieces — Derrick White, Payton Pritchard, the young wings — are being asked to absorb a new co-star while their franchise player watches from the sideline. Chemistry isn't something you talk into existence, and the window to build it before the season opens is shrinking by the day.

What makes it harder is the Eastern Conference they're walking into. Philadelphia now has LeBron, Embiid, Maxey, and Brown. That roster didn't exist when Boston made this trade. The margin for a slow start, for a rough adjustment period, is considerably thinner than the front office probably anticipated when it pulled the trigger in June.

George has said the right things — that he can play off another superstar wing, that the backlash is fair, that he has something to prove. My read is that he means it. But none of that converts into wins until Tatum is on the floor, and right now nobody can tell you when that is.