BOSTON — Kevin Durant needed to pause for a moment. Approaching his bus leaving TD Garden after beating down the Celtics with 26 points on 8-for-11 shooting, having just turned 37 one month ago, he thought about how his infamous 2019 Achilles rupture altered his game. He motioned as he talked about it, leaping to the side and pulling up for an imaginary shot. Finding an answer, he acknowledged he did change his approach.
“It was small, subtle changes, subtle tweaks,” he told CLNS Media. “But I felt like my bread-and-butter was my short to mid-range. I felt like I can still shoot the threes, the side-steps, the step-backs, that was cool, but I just felt like I had to be way more efficient and get closer to the rim.”
Durant begrudgingly became the Achilles guy. The one who people ask when they suffer the same fate he did, the feeling that someone kicked your calf and the relenting fall to the floor that follows. That’s because arguably no player ever recovered so successfully from the injury. Durant missed 15 months, averaged 26.9 points per game and made the All-Star team in his first 35 games back. Into his sixth season since then, he posted 27.8 points, 6.7 rebounds and 5.1 assists per game while shooting 53.1% from the field and 41.4% from three. That’s as good if not better than the 12 prior seasons. So everyone wants the answers.
The first call came in from Joe Mazzulla, then Tatum’s mother Brandy Cole checked in alongside his agent Jeffrey Wechsler. They all wanted the answer to what they could do to help Tatum after a moment where his career flashed before his eyes. While the decision came together separately to rush him into surgery the following day, coincidentally with Dr. Martin O’Malley, who performed Durant’s surgery, Durant left loose advice and didn’t reach out to Tatum directly until later.
“Not immediately,” he said. “I didn’t wanna be another burden. There are so many people that were probably checking on him, but Joe texted me actually, Mazzulla, his mom, his agent, just asking for advice on what they should do to help and at that time I told them to just be there for support, try to ease his mind a bit, but I didn’t talk to Jayson much. It’s one of those situations you gotta go through on your own.”
That’s what Durant stressed most Tatum teases a return this season, which would come less than one year following Game 4 in New York. Nobody’s advice will supersede what Tatum feels and how he responds to each rep. The videos surprised Durant too, though. Now nearly six months removed from surgery, Durant doesn’t remember himself dunking like Tatum did on film multiple times recently. The clips impressed him. There are plenty of differences between the stars that make any comparison, never mind Durant’s unique comeback, difficult.
Like Tyrese Haliburton in June, Durant suffered his injury near the end of the NBA Finals, which set up a timeline where he had no chance to return the following season. He received treatment relatively quickly, two days later, but traveled from Toronto to New York to do so. Tatum miraculously suffered his tear in the same city where O’Malley practiced at the Hospital for Special Surgery. Durant’s recovery coincided with the COVID season shutdown and Bubble that followed, which Durant did not participate in. That led to a later start than anticipated to the 2020-21 season, so he marked his return on Dec. 22, 2020. Those in the medical field don’t believe missing more time than necessary to return to 100% necessarily improves outcomes. So Durant can imagine a Tatum comeback this year, though with caution.
“I think it’s feasible,” he said. “It’s good to have that option on the table to know he can come back, but that’s such a long way away from now. I feel like he’s taking it day-by-day and see what happens with the team, see what happens with his body and make a decision at a later date, but it’s cool to keep it open I guess to play and he just loves to play man. He’s a gamer. He loves to hoop, so I’m sure if he can get out there no matter what the team’s record is, no matter what, he’s gonna get out there to play, so we all can’t wait to see him out there again.”
Regardless of when it happens, Durant expects Tatum to return to form. So much medical advancement occurred in even the six years since Tatum’s tear that some doctors don’t do the invasive surgery that Durant underwent, which required fully opening the skin on the back of his foot. Now, doctors like O’Malley perform procedures that do less damage and in some cases have led to speedier returns. Durant heard Damian Lillard and Tatum might’ve underwent more advanced surgery than he did.
That’s encouraging alongside the other factors working in Tatum’s favor compared to what’s the model recovery in Durant’s case. Another, Tatum only turning 28 next year, compares favorably to Durant suffering his at 30. Still, everyone goes through the confidence building process that follows the return from surgery. Tatum may not resemble Tatum for some time after whenever he enters the lineup. That’s what often brings a full recovery to well beyond one year. As efficiently as Durant played in 2020-21, he sometimes couldn’t keep up.
“Just the speed of the game to be honest,” he said. “Pace is something you develop over time as you get more experience in the league and then being out for a whole year, you miss that pace of the game. When I first came back, everything was fast. I was coming off pin-downs 100 miles-per-hour, I was trying to score so fast, I was trying to contest shots without slowing down, so it’s a lot of stuff you gotta get used to, but I feel like the pace is the biggest thing and once you understand the flow of the game, then everything else comes pretty easy to you.”
Ime Udoka reached out to Tatum more immediately once he learned about the incident and leaned on his own experience tearing his ACL multiple times to encourage him. Udoka stressed that he would reach benchmarks every month that would uplift him, now visible in the highlights of Tatum dribbling and running up the floor, looking like himself in Auerbach Center workouts. There’s a longer path to full recovery, but Udoka, who’s stayed in touch with Tatum throughout the process, said he’s ahead of schedule.
Durant, who Udoka coached in 2021 during his first season back in Brooklyn, reunited with Udoka in Houston this offseason and maintains a meticulous approach to his body and recovery that ranks up there with Tatum. The initial comeback flies by, he remembered, while the maintenance that continues beyond the return becomes part of how you change following an Achilles tear. Durant doesn’t expect the Celtics’ record to supersede Tatum’s health in terms of when that will happen. He cautioned against stressing too much about the team’s performance, and using this time to fully focus on yourself. No media. No expectations. Just you and as much time as you need.
And when Tatum’s time comes, Durant hopes the next generation that tears their Achilles will look to Tatum as the model.
“It’s good to see the evolution the evolution of medicine,” Durant said as he boarded the bus. “Hopefully those guys are Achilles guys now. When somebody got an Achilles, they can call Jayson instead of me.”
