NEW YORK — The symbolism isn’t lost on Jayson Tatum. Just a few months ago Tatum was in midtown Manhattan, trying to pull the Celtics out of a 2–1 hole in the Eastern Conference semifinals against the Knicks when his Achilles snapped, ending his season. Now here he was, 19 weeks later, back in the same city, discussing his long road back.
“I got drafted in New York, I tore my Achilles in New York,” Tatum says. “New York will be part of my life forever.”
It’s midafternoon and Tatum is settled into a couch inside a suite at the Four Seasons. He’s speaking to Sports Illustrated as part of his partnership with Journavx, a non-opioid pain medication Tatum says has been instrumental in his recovery. On Monday, Tatum went through a 20-minute on-court workout—his first since the injury.
“It was the best feeling in the world,” Tatum says. “It reminded me that I’m still a basketball player.”
In the immediate aftermath of the injury, Tatum wasn’t sure he ever would be. He can remember everything about that moment. “For me it’s like I had headphones on,” he says. “I heard it pop and I knew as soon as I fell on the floor.” Cameras captured Tatum appearing to be in pain. Not so, he says. More disbelief. “It was just like, ‘Oh, my God, I cannot believe this just happened,’ ” Tatum recalls. “It was just kind of like my whole basketball career kind of flashed in front of my eyes.”
His time with the Celtics, too. Tatum has spent eight years in Boston. He grew from a flashy scorer with potential into a complete All-NBA forward. He was a year removed from helping the Celtics win a championship. Yet as he sat there on the training table, he wondered if after this Boston would still want him.
“All perspective and reality goes out the window in that moment,” Tatum says. “I know they love me, but they might feel like, ‘Yo, we got to move on.’ That really went through my mind. That this might have been the last time I wear this uniform.”
From there things happened quickly. At the team hotel, Tatum’s longtime trainer, Nick Sang, suggested Tatum get an MRI first thing in the morning. Dr. Martin O’Malley, a noted foot and ankle surgeon, confirmed the diagnosis. He told Tatum he needed surgery—and that he had an opening in a few hours to do it.
“And I just broke down crying,” Tatum says. “I was like, ‘There’s no way.’ This time yesterday I was trying to win a playoff game, and now it’s like I’m about to have surgery. But I’m thankful that I did at that time and I think it’s been very instrumental to my recovery thus far.”
“I just broke down crying.”Jayson Tatum
Still, the days after were difficult. “I was in a dark place,” Tatum says. At night he would wake up and just stare at his foot. “Just wondering how this could happen to me,” he says. At 27, Tatum had achieved nearly everything. A championship, a sneaker deal, the then-richest contract in NBA history. Hobbling around his house, he couldn’t see his way back to that. More than once he told his mother, Brandy, “I don’t know if I can do this anymore.”
Tatum can’t point to a single turning point. The days, he says, just started getting better. He took solace in small victories. Walking. A single calf raise. “I could see that there was a light at the end of this tunnel,” Tatum says. “And there’s just a bunch of days like that kind of stack up with each other.”
It helped that Tatum wasn’t on this path alone. Weeks before Tatum tore his Achilles, Damian Lillard snapped his. Weeks after, it was Tyrese Haliburton. Tatum has connected with both, sharing experiences. He’s talked to Dejounte Murray, who tore his last January.
“Just kind of asking them, ‘Where are you at in your recovery?’ ” Tatum says. “ ‘How did it feel when you first got out the boot? How did it feel when you first ran?’ Things like that.”
There’s confidence in Tatum’s voice. He’s moved past the point of wondering if he would ever play again to doing whatever he can to be better when he gets back. Kevin Durant, he says, has been an inspiration. In 2019, Durant tore his Achilles in the NBA Finals. He missed all of the ’19–20 season. In ’22, he finished in the top 10 in MVP voting. At 36, Durant is coming off an All-Star season—and remains one of the best players in the game. Since regaining his mobility, Tatum has been a fixture in the weight room, improving the areas he can.
“It sounds ironic to say, but this is the best that my body and the strongest that I’ve felt really kind of in my career,” Tatum says. “I’ve never had this block of time to just focus on getting stronger and getting your body right. So I see a world in which I come back and I feel stronger, more explosive than I did before I got hurt.”
When that will be is unclear. Typically, Achilles tears require a full year to recover. And even if Tatum is medically cleared before the end of this season, Boston may not want to drop its franchise player into an intense playoff race. Still, Tatum refuses to close the door on an in-season return.
“I haven’t said I’m coming back, and I haven’t said that I’m not,” Tatum says. “It’s for a couple of different reasons. For me to say, ‘Yo, I’m not coming back this year,’ I don’t know. I need something to look forward to. Going to the rehab every single day, I need a goal or something that I’m trying to chase. And I might not come back this year, but I need to feel like I’m attacking something, I’m working towards something.
“And it’s a lot of things that could happen. I joke about it all the time, like, ‘I’m not going in there six days a week for no reason.’ Me and Nick, I told him early on, I circled the date on the calendar and I was like, ‘Yo, I’m going to be a hundred percent ready by this day.’ Now there’s conversations to be had after that and what makes sense and what might not make sense, but I’m going to do my part that by this day I know I will be a hundred percent.”
“I haven’t said I’m coming back [in the 2025–26 season], and I haven’t said that I’m not.”Jayson Tatum
Truth is, Boston may not want him back. Not this season, anyway. The Celtics gutted their roster this summer. Key pieces of the 2024 title team—Al Horford, Jrue Holiday, Kristaps Porzingis, Luke Kornet—are gone. Boston isn’t tanking. But with control over its ’26 draft pick, a trip to the lottery wouldn’t be the worst thing for the franchise, either.
For Tatum, it was tough to see the roster stripped down. A year ago the Celtics looked like a potential dynasty. Faced with starting over, Tatum couldn’t help but feel like he was to blame.
“It’s weird because obviously I know it’s not my fault, I couldn’t have done anything to change it, but you can’t help but understand or acknowledge that moment kind of changed the direction of what we were trying to do,” Tatum says. “Obviously with [the] second apron and all the things like that, they had decisions to make, but it was just like, man.
“We didn’t take it for granted. We won a championship our first year we competed. We had an unbelievable team in our mind, we were like, ‘Man, we going to see how many we can win in these next four or five years.’ And then it was just like it kind of all changed. And it’s just unfortunate. It’s nobody’s fault. It’s just like, man, I only got to play with KP for two years. I only got to play with Jrue for two and Al, who I thought I would be his teammate until he retired, was moving on.”
“We didn’t take it for granted. We won a championship our first year we competed. We had an unbelievable team in our mind.”Jayson Tatum
The next few weeks will be difficult for Tatum. The Celtics will open training camp on Monday. The first preseason game is around the corner. The first regular-season game not long after. Tatum has done most of his rehab in Boston. And he intends to spend most of the season there, too. But the reality that he will not be playing will be sobering.
“I want to be around, but it’s going to be tough,” Tatum says. “But I do think I need to be, for one, to be a good teammate and for my own sanity, I need to be around the team. I need to feel like I’m still a part of the team and showing those guys every day that I’m doing everything in my power to get back a hundred percent.”
As an interview wrapped up, Tatum’s smile returned. Around him, friends, including Sang, cracked jokes and chewed on finger food. It was 19 weeks down—every Tuesday represents a new one—and another was just beginning. It brings a little more distance from the darkest day of his career. And brings him closer to a brighter one.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as ‘I Was in a Dark Place’: Jayson Tatum Reflects on Career-Altering Injury and Comeback Drive.