Tatum still day-to-day as camp opens, and that's the whole problem

Paul George spent three days last week telling anyone who'd listen that he can play off a superstar wing, that he has a chip on his shoulder, that the circumstances are fair. All of that may be true. None of it matters much if Jayson Tatum isn't on the floor beside him.

Tatum has been listed day-to-day since mid-July with no resolution, and training camp is here. That's two months of the same non-answer. The Tatum-George partnership was the entire rationale for trading away Brown — a player who averaged 27.9 points and shot 47.4 percent last season — and right now that partnership exists mostly in theory. George can talk about playing off another superstar wing all he wants; you can't build chemistry in a press conference.

The broader context makes the timeline more urgent. Philadelphia added LeBron James to a roster that already includes Embiid, Maxey, and now Brown. The East got harder the moment Boston pulled the trigger on that trade, and the Celtics don't have the luxury of a slow start to sort things out. Last season this team went 10-10 in games decided by five points or fewer — close games were already a problem before the roster was rebuilt from scratch.

The next ten days of camp are essentially a diagnostic. If Tatum is practicing at full intensity, the integration can begin in earnest and George's optimism has something to attach to. If he's still being managed carefully, Boston is running a new offense around a player who isn't there yet, and the questions that have hung over this offseason don't get smaller — they compound.