Celtics’s Jayson Tatum on the return from Torn Achille: “I’m not saying I’m not playing this season”
Jayson Tatum has been crushed. Physically. Emotionally. Here he is, one of the first five players in the world in a Celtics team with a legitimate possibility of being the first NBA repetition champion since Kevin Durant lived in the Bay Area, then suddenly, after immersing himself for a loose ball, he was lying on the field at the Madison Square Garden with an incredible pain with what he knew was a torn Achille.
Tatum confided all this in one of the pillars of his support, his mother, He told Andrew Grief of NBC News.
“It was almost as if I felt betrayed,” said Aquunio Tatum. “I was one of those guys who never wanted to sit … I feel like I took care of my body. I didn’t get angry the game. When it was time to rest, I rested. When it was time to train or lift or do care or whatever it was, I felt like I had always been at the top of my routine.
“So for this it happened, it was like, friend, this did not have to happen to me. And for a while, I was a bit like – it might seem dramatic, but I remember having told my mother, like mom, I could be done. I don’t know if I will be able to overcome it or if I am ready for this challenge. ‘ You know, I just felt defeated.
The mental hardness and the struggle that led Tatum to become one of the first five players in the world eventually entered, and put at the top of his recovery routine, working on a return. Both in his interview with NBC News and in his appearance Today with Jenna & FriendsHe stressed that this is a daily process. And he would not have excluded a return this season.
“As, [day to day] The way I faced this process is how, friend, the most important thing is to resume full. I’m not saying I’m not playing this season.
“I’m not taking it away from the table, because, you know, for me as a competitor, every day I go to the weight room and I make rehabilitation, I am working for something, of course, returning to 100%, every time it is.”
If Tatum returns this season he could depend on several factors, the most important is his body and his recovery, but also where the Celtics are in pursuit of the playoffs in the subsequent stages of the season. Would the risk apply? This is a team from Boston who sent two key veterans players of their championship team – Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday – due to the second restrictive apron of the NBA. There are expectations in the circles of the championship that this will be a little a sabbatical year for Boston, who will reorganize next summer with a healthy tatum and Jaylen Brown and make another title run. The new owner Bill Chisholm said he will do everything you need for this team to win.
Tatum will be at the center of this – and perhaps even being part of this season. He has a goal, he won’t exclude him.