It's unfortunate that Jayson Tatum went down with the Achilles injury he did for many reasons, but being one of the bright stars in the NBA, it's always challenging to see one of those players get hurt.
Unfortunately, Tatum's injury will impact the Celtics in more ways than not, as while they already had to cut costs heading into next season, it’ll cause some other decisions to be made.
All the Celtics can hope for is that Tatum responds to this injury just like he has to other adversities throughout his life.
When many questioned if he was good enough to be a top option on the championship team, he turned around and won it all. When Tatum was asked to improve his game in other ways, he did just that.
However, this might be the toughest of them all.
Despite the challenges, according to Brad Stevens, Tatum is doing well. It's important to hear that he's rehabbing hard, which everybody expected given his mentality throughout his entire career.
“He seems to be doing really well,” Stevens said, per MassLive. “It’s hard. Rehabbing is hard. Anybody that’s ever been through a long injury and a long recovery — it’s just a challenge. It’s a mental challenge, a physical challenge obviously. He got the surgery right away, and from that point on, his mindset is was: We are going after this thing and trying to get better."
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It'll be interesting to see what the Celtics' plan of action is over the next few months.
Some believe that Tatum could return in the 2025-2026 season, while others believe it's more likely that he'll return in 2026-27.
Ultimately, the Celtics' main focus here has to be getting him healthy.
However that happens is what they need to do.