Celtics
“Day 25… days starting to get a little easier.”
Jayson Tatum appears to be feeling a bit more optimistic in his rehab from his Achilles tear.
The Celtics’ star provided a brief, but optimistic, update on how he’s feeling in his rehab in a social media post on Saturday.
“Day 25… days starting to get a little easier,” Tatum wrote in a post to X, formerly known as Twitter.
Of course, Tatum is likely referring to the number of days it’s been since he underwent surgery to repair his right Achilles. Saturday marks 25 days since he went under the knife on May 13.
Tatum’s comment on Saturday is also the first time he’s publicly commented on his Achilles tear since right after he underwent surgery.
“Thankful for all the love and support 🙏🏽,” Tatum wrote in an Instagram post with a picture of him at the hospital on May 14.
Since then, Tatum’s largely been silent. He’s occasionally posted to his Instagram stories, with his post celebrating his son Deuce finishing first grade earlier this week going viral.
Tatum suffered the injury during the Celtics’ Game 4 loss to the Knicks in the Eastern Conference semifinals. Boston’s season ended four days later, when it was blown out in Game 6.
The Celtics have also played Tatum’s recovery close to the vest in three-plus weeks since he underwent surgery. They didn’t provide a timeline for how long Tatum could be out for when they announced he underwent surgery.
At his end of year press conference, Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens said that Tatum has a “long road ahead” in his recovery. However, Stevens also noted that the team was fortunate to be so close to Dr. Martin O’Malley, who has performed Achilles surgery on Kevin Durant and others, when Tatum suffered his injury. That allowed Tatum to undergo surgery sooner than most players who rupture their Achilles, providing some optimism in his recovery.
“There was real benefit to doing it early,” Stevens told reporters in May. “So as tough as that injury is and as tough as that was that night, just an amazing set of circumstances, and an amazing thank you from our organization to Dr. O’Malley, the nurses at [the Hospital for Special Surgery] and everybody there, the hotel that we were staying in and the accommodations they made Jayson feel comfortable in. I thought it was about as good of a transition in about as bleak of a feeling as you could have.”
While the Celtics didn’t provide a timeline on Tatum’s recovery, his father, Justin, told ESPN’s Marc Spears that they were looking at an eight-to-nine-month timetable. That would certainly be an optimistic timetable as most NBA players who suffer an Achilles tear are sidelined for nearly a year or longer.
Durant was among the group of players who were out for over a year following his Achilles tear, making his return to action 18 months after the injury (although the COVID pandemic played a hand in that). Tatum is reportedly using Durant’s rehab as a template for his road to recovery.
“One prime example of a tremendous rehab from an Achilles tear is Kevin Durant,” ESPN’s Shams Charania said in May. “Both surgeries were quick. Kevin Durant had his two days after suffering the Achilles tear. Jayson Tatum had his one day after suffering his Achilles tear. Both happened at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City.
“The expectation around Tatum is that he’ll consult with Kevin Durant about that rehab that Kevin Durant had several years ago and that’s going to be used as a template because Durant made the best recovery of a player from this injury.”
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