During an hour-long interview with \u201cThe Pivot\u201d podcast, Jayson Tatum spoke at length about his grueling recovery from Achilles surgery.<\/p>\n
The Celtics star hinted at when he might be planning to return to the court \u2014 and admitted he\u2019s given considerable thought to the potential challenges of reintegrating himself into a Boston team that\u2019s thrived in his absence.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s something I contemplate every day,\u201d Tatum told the show\u2019s hosts, former NFL players Ryan Clark, Channing Crowder and Fred Taylor. \u201cMore so about the team. If or when I do come back this season, they would have played 50-some-odd games without me. So they have an identity this year, or things that they\u2019ve felt that have clicked for them, and it\u2019s been successful \u2014 second (seed) in the East up to this point. So there is a thought in my head of, like, how does that work? How does that look with me integrating myself off an injury and 50, 60 games into a season?<\/p>\n
\u201c(There) obviously could be some challenges, and it is a thought, like, \u2018Damn, do I come back, or should I wait?\u2019 It\u2019s honestly something that recently, in the last two weeks or so, I just kind of contemplate every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The question that prompted that response was specifically about Tatum\u2019s longtime co-star, Jaylen Brown, who\u2019s posted career-best numbers this season as the Celtics\u2019 unquestioned No. 1 option. Brown is on pace to become just the third player in franchise history to average at least 29 points, six rebounds and four assists per game, joining Tatum in 2022-23 and Larry Bird in 1987-88.<\/p>\n
Brown, voted an NBA All-Star starter<\/a> for the first time, has called this his \u201cfavorite season.\u201d<\/a> There are valid questions about how Boston\u2019s offense \u2014 which was revamped in training camp to account for the losses of Tatum and offseason departures Kristaps Porzingis, Jrue Holiday, Al Horford and Luke Kornet \u2014 will operate once both of its superstars are available.<\/p>\n Forty-six games in, the Celtics rank second in offensive rating and third in net rating, and trail only the Detroit Pistons in the Eastern Conference standings.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like I\u2019ve sacrificed over the years in order for us to be a championship-caliber team,\u201d Brown said after Monday\u2019s win over the Portland Trail Blazers<\/a>. \u201cAnd now, I think we\u2019re getting to see that a little bit \u2014 what exactly I was capable of and what I was sacrificing. I think before, maybe it wasn\u2019t so obvious. I think now, being able to be at the helm of things, and us being the second seed in the East, versus last year, we finished second seed in the East. It\u2019s almost been no dropoff, with four players, five players, that are essentially gone.\u201d<\/p>\n Though Tatum has not confirmed he will play this season \u2014 and Celtics officials have repeatedly declined to announce a timeline for his comeback<\/a> \u2014 he seemingly has made steady progress in his recovery. Last week, he worked out in front of reporters for close to an hour<\/a>. The 50-to-60-game window he referenced would put him back in uniform in February or early March \u2014 roughly nine months after he suffered the injury in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference semifinals on May 12.<\/p>\n (Tatum previously said his first game back would be at TD Garden; the Celtics home games during that stretch are this Friday against Miami, this Sunday against New York, next Wednesday against Chicago, Friday, Feb. 27 against Brooklyn, and Sunday, March 1 against Philadelphia.)<\/p>\n Tatum also reflected on what he described as dark times following his surgery.<\/p>\n \u201cI was done with basketball when I got hurt,\u201d he said on the podcast. \u201cI felt, like, betrayed. In a sense, I felt betrayed by the game. I was never one of those guys that was \u2014 I never cheated the game. I never took it for granted. I used to wake up at 5:30 in the morning when I was in high school and work out before school. Growing up in St. Louis, single-parent household, I felt like I was behind already. I didn\u2019t come from a New York or a Florida or a California, so I felt I already was behind other players around the country, so I did everything possible to maximize my God-given ability.<\/p>\n \u201cI never wanted to miss games. I never missed a playoff game. I didn\u2019t do load management. I led the league in minutes since I came into the league. So it just didn\u2019t feel fair that that happened to me. So I remember I didn\u2019t watch the rest of the playoffs. I didn\u2019t want to talk about basketball. I really felt betrayed, and I needed some time. I needed some time away from the game.\u201d<\/p>\n During those difficult weeks, he said, he questioned his basketball mortality.<\/p>\n \u201cIt took time,\u201d Tatum said. \u201cThere was a few weeks where I thought about, like, \u2018Damn, did I make enough money? Did I accomplish enough?\u2019 There were some moments where I was laying in my mom\u2019s house with my foot up where I thought, like, \u2018Man, I might be done.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Tatum, who turns 28 in March, said his mother, Brandy, helped lift his spirits during that period of doubt. He also drew inspiration from Kevin Durant, who\u2019s been a perennial All-Star since tearing his Achilles in the 2019 NBA Finals.<\/p>\n \u201cI can honestly say KD is a big reason why the narrative (around Achilles injuries) has kind of changed,\u201d he said. \u201cEven he was older than me when he did it, and he still returned to being exactly who he is. (He\u2019s) someone I\u2019m super close with and I\u2019ve talked to, but just the way he went about it and the way he came back really changed the narrative around that injury and gave people like myself hope that, oh, you can come back and be yourself or be better.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During an hour-long interview with \u201cThe Pivot\u201d podcast, Jayson Tatum spoke at length about his grueling recovery from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":566608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3766],"tags":[7,45,75,3798,46,78,77,9067,77047,77046,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-566607","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boston-celtics","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-boston","10":"tag-boston-celtics","11":"tag-bostonceltics","12":"tag-celtics","13":"tag-jaylen-brown","14":"tag-jayson-tatum","15":"tag-jayson-tatum-injury","16":"tag-jayson-tatum-pivot","17":"tag-jayson-tatum-podcast","18":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115973735538934442","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=566607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/566608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}