The wait is becoming the story

Tatum has been day-to-day since mid-July. It is now late September. At some point the designation stops being a medical update and starts being a season preview.

George has been in camp doing the work — learning the system, building chemistry with Derrick White and Payton Pritchard, figuring out spacing without the player he was brought here to play beside. That's not nothing. But there's a ceiling on what any of that chemistry-building means when the centerpiece of the whole plan hasn't been on the floor. The Celtics rebuilt this roster around a specific partnership. Right now that partnership exists mostly in press conference quotes.

The Eastern Conference isn't waiting. Philadelphia added LeBron to a group that already includes Embiid, Maxey, and now Brown. Boston traded away its leading scorer to get ahead of that competition, and the return on that trade depends almost entirely on Tatum being healthy and available. Every day of camp that passes without him is a day George spends learning half a system.

No timetable has been given. That's where things stand.