Jayson Tatum speaks on Achilles injury for first time
'Rehab is tedious, man — six days a week. It's starting to get a little bit better now, I'm out the boot now,' Tatum said. 'Better days ahead, but just trying to take it one day at a time.'
The Celtics have not announced a recovery timeline for the Celtics star, who was named to the All-NBA First Team in each of the last four seasons. President of Basketball Operations Brad Stevens hasn't ruled out Tatum returning next season, but most players miss at least a year after tearing their Achilles.
Tatum has made several public appearances since his injury; he hosted a basketball camp and charity fundraiser in his hometown of St. Louis in July, and attended a New England Patriots practice and briefly spoke at a Celtics community event in Providence. But he hasn't held a media availability and has mostly stayed out of the public eye since the injury.
ESPN's Marc Spears reported shortly after Tatum underwent surgery that his father, Justin Tatum, expects his son to return to the floor in 8-9 months. According to that timeline, there's hope he would be available to lace up as early as February.
But, earlier this month, Celtics team president Rich Gotham declined to put a timetable on Tatum's potential return when asked about whether the team would be open to clearing him toward the end of next season.
'What I know about JT is that he's gonna do everything he can to put us in the position to make a decision,' Gotham said. 'He's gonna work hard to get back as soon as he can, and we'll see how soon that is. But for right now, we're not really looking at timetables.'
Tatum has turned to social media several times since the injury, expressing his frustration in late June on X/Twitter and writing: 'Day 45… this is some bullshit.'
And his first interview since the injury, Tatum reflected on those early days.
'You got to be resilient,' Tatum said. '[Those] first six weeks of this was probably the toughest six weeks of any point in my life. Just had to accept it and realize it happened, and now I gotta do everything in my power to get back to who I was.'
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