Doctors Answer Questions About Jayson Tatum’s Achilles Injury

Jayson Tatum underwent surgery for a ruptured right achilles on Tuesday one day after that tear occurred in the closing minutes of the Celtics’ Game 4 loss to the Knicks on Monday in New York. Tatum now faces an average 10 month recovery for NBA players that could extend longer if the team progresses more cautiously.

That positions him to miss at least the start of next season and more likely most if not all of 2025-26. A stunning turn in the 27-year-old’s career and a turning point in the trajectory of a Boston Celtics franchise that’s stood among the most successful in the NBA since drafting Tatum in 2017.

He’s only missed 51 regular season games in his career, most for rest, and had never suffered a significant injury until now. Game 2 against the Magic in the first round marked his first missed playoff game after 114 straight appearances. Almost no other player proved as durable in the league over that stretch.

He faces a physical turning-point that few players have endured this early in their career. Most of the notable achilles tears in recent decades happened to players after their 30th birthday, or in the later stages of their career. Many of the older players who suffered from them saw the injury derail their career, like Isiah Thomas and Kobe Bryant. Kevin Durant stands as a notable exception, who tore his at a similar point in the 2019 season before missing the entirety of 2020 after his move to the Brooklyn Nets. That allowed him to rehab for 18 months. The scary example is Demarcus Cousins, who also fell injured at 27 and was never the same.

“I think it’s possible (he can return to his previous level),” Dr. Erek Latzka from Boston Sports and Biologics told CLNS Media. “He’s a lot younger than Kobe, (who) made a remarkable recovery … if he got a better surgery faster and he’s younger, and he’s as motivated as Kobe, he’s probably his idol, he’s gonna be looking at everything Kobe did and trying to do it as fast or faster. So I’m hopeful, optimistic as a physician, also as a fan and as a local Massachusetts native, but you never know. You never know with these things. If you talk about just regular Achilles ruptures and in professional athletes, it’s about 25-30% of them don’t actually come back to play, but those are a lot of people who might not be as well known. They’re on the fringes of the rosters, they might not make it back and they aren’t at that level after an injury. Now, superstars like Tatum, Durant, Kobe, they can slow down a bit and still be an effective player in the NBA. Will he be the same? I don’t know.”

The Celtics and Knicks’ second round series continues on Wednesday, but trailing 3-1 with Jaylen Brown bruised, Kristaps Porziņģis sick and Tatum out, Boston stands little chance to complete a comeback. While that plays out, Tatum will wear a two-part cast to account for swelling following surgery. He’ll eventually move into a harder cast that’s more rigid and will be changed regularly.

There’s blood clotting concern following achilles surgery, so many patients go on blood-thinning medication during the early stages of recovery. Latzka mentioned studies into whether PRP injections or stem cells can improve recovery, but they haven’t proven to. Other potential treatments that could help, like peptides, would not be allowing under league PED rules. He praised the Celtics medical staff for offloading Tatum’s achilles immediately, putting no weight on it and for the rapid turnaround to surgery.

Tatum won’t be able to attend games late in this series while prioritizing elevation, keeping the achilles in a shortened position before slowly increasing tension on the repair over time. The beginning stages of recovery won’t begin until 1-2 months from now, but undergoing surgery the day after the tear could prove beneficial.

“I think you have to look to other sports for comparable-aged athletes,” Latzka said. “In football, you’ve got Cam Akers who is young, younger than him, and then you have JK Dobbins who I think was around the same age, and They made pretty good and fast recovery. Some might say Akers went back a little too soon, but I think  there’s reason to be optimistic with his age and with how early he got the surgery … that would be great to see him back in the playoffs next year.”

A rupture indicates a full tear that required repair, whereas a partial tear could’ve carried a shorter and potentially non-surgical recovery. That wasn’t the case, so the hope was that the tear occurred in an advantageous position to benefit from new advances like a SpeedBridge technique that can reduce recovery times by as far as down to six months. That’s only available in a typical tear that’s not too high up the calf. ESPN reported on Wednesday that Tatum underwent surgery with Dr. Martin O’Malley, the surgeon who repaired Durant’s achilles. O’Malley has performed SpeedBridge surgeries, but it’s still unclear if Tatum received one. Tatum’s father Justin told Marc Spears he expects Tatum to miss 8-9 months.

Football players like Aaron Rodgers have more commonly went in that direction, and while there’s no confirmation Tatum did, him undergoing surgery in New York City could be significant, according to Latzka. There aren’t doctors performing that technique in Boston.

“The standard repair is essentially suturing the two ends of the Achilles back together with lots of suture, strong Teflon suture sometimes, and that’s a very successful procedure, but typically it requires 9 to 12 months recovery,” Latzka said. “The speed bridge is internal bracing. Basically it’s reinforcing the Achilles with a device that’s implanted into the heel bone, into the calcaneus, and this hardware that goes into the calcaneus then provides extra support to the Achilles. It’s been done for seven or eight years. It’s becoming more common, mostly in professional athletes, and it has gotten athletes back faster. Probably the fastest was Cam Akers. He was back to playing in an NFL game by five months. Aaron Rodgers is the controversial one. He said he was ready at four months, but he didn’t have to really go back to any kind of game play until the next season, but when we think about NBA players, there haven’t been any that I can think of that have had the Speedbridge yet.”

The Celtics provided no timeline for Tatum’s recovery.

The process will involve gradual weight-bearing and overcoming the emotional toll of being unable to perform any activity. Latzka, who has torn both achilles, has seen physical therapy protocols improve in the decade since. Patients exit boots sooner, begin range of motion and strength training earlier in the recovery period in a controlled manner. Past fears that would lead to re-rupture have been alleviated over time. That’s led to some of the quicker recoveries we’ve witnessed. But even when Tatum returns, he won’t immediately play comfortably.

“Really anywhere from 6-9 months (of recovery) has been reported, and one of the other factors that can be challenging to predict is both the physical and the psychological readiness after this injury,” Dr. Adam Tenforde from Massachusetts General Brigham told CLNS. “Because a star player like Jayson Tatum needs to be able to trust both his limbs equally and be able to make those dynamic movement and pivots, and display all the athleticism that he’s had pre-injury. So that aspect of recovery is a little bit more unpredictable.”

That could lead to Tatum missing the entirety of the season, even if 9-10 months leads to March or April next year. The playoffs would not be the ideal environment to ease into action, and there may not be much time left in the season if the Celtics don’t make the postseason in 2026. Though there isn’t necessarily a benefit or better outcome to staying out longer than when the Achilles injury fully heals, Tenforde said, it would allow him to kick back that process of regaining confidence and burst to the summer and a full training camp ahead of 2026-27.

It would also be the case with the Speedbridge, as placing too much pressure and exertion on the Achilles too soon is one of the concerns with the earlier return is one of the risks in going with that treatment alongside infection and more difficult revisions. Unfortunately, an achilles injury always involves the chance that a player won’t have the same explosiveness or movement ability they used to. That’s what made Wednesday’s news so devastating. Doctors and experts CLNS spoke with collectively expressed confidence he can return to his previous form with enough time, but there is no guarantee.

“It’s gonna alter his gait,” Latzka said. “It’ll be probably a year. Even if he’s back at nine months, he’s still gonna be thinking about it a lot and that’s the other thing, trying to just get past it mentally and not be afraid of that step. And I think even after you’re back, you gotta be back and playing for a few months before you can start to forget about it.”