The Celtics announced on Tuesday that Jayson Tatum underwent successful surgery to repair a ruptured right Achilles tendon. No timetable is currently available for his return, but he is expected to make a full recovery.
Karalis' analysis
This was the expected news after what we saw last night in New York. It had all the telltale signs of an Achilles tear and that's what it ended up being.
The typical timeline for a player to return from an Achilles tear is somewhere around six months. Tatum is a bit on the young side to suffer that kind of injury, but that could work in his favor, considering his high level of overall conditioning and general ability to heal quickly. Some players might take longer in all phases of recovery, which could push the return out to 10-12 months. The older players tend to take longer.
Step one for Tatum will be healing from the surgery, followed by a long rehab process. That will be the toughest test he faces in all of this; starting from scratch and rebuilding the strength and confidence in the leg. The mental hurdle will be as tough as the physical one. The tendon will heal and the muscles will grow again, but catastrophic injuries can bring a level of fear and uncertainty into the mind of an athlete.
That's not something they're used to feeling. Tatum has had his bumps and bruises, but he's generally been durable. This injury has ripped that from him, which will test his overall ability to trust his body.
After the rehab will come the ramp-up process, which will also take time. We might not see Tatum back on the court until November or December.
There is a natural inclination to wonder if Tatum's minutes worked against him. I have long said he needed more rest days during the season, but at the same time, he was 14th in the NBA in total minutes, so it wasn't an outrageous number. I just think this was bad luck.
The Celtics will have to try to save their season without him, which now puts the weight of carrying the offense on Jaylen Brown. The Celtics already have no margin for error, and the loss of Tatum means they'll have to play perfectly to win Game 5 and stave off elimination. Maybe the weight of that is too much on a team where Brown's knee and Kristaps Porzingis' illness have been issues. Or maybe the forced attention to detail makes the Celtics look better than expected.
In the long term, the Celtics were already changing this summer. The roster has to be remade because of the second apron, so there is some question about what the opening night roster will look like and who's left from this year's roster to support it. Tatum could return to a much different team whenever he does come back from the injury. It's certainly possible the Celtics fall in the standings and have to fight very hard to make any kind of playoff run next season.
This is a worst-case scenario for Boston, whose season will likely end weeks sooner than expected. Unless Miracle Max can whip something up quickly for this slightly alive team, Tatum's injury will be the final nail in a devastatingly disappointing semifinals. What's left is a massive unknown when it comes to his recovery, reaction to the injury, and remaking of his team. Tatum is young and otherwise healthy enough to get back to some semblance of his normal self, but you can't say that about his team.