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Kevin Durant offers up advice for Jayson Tatum after Achilles injury
“Once they throw themselves out there, those guys are going to be alright.”
Jayson Tatum is staring at an arduous rehab process in the coming months after rupturing his Achilles tendon during the Eastern Conference Semifinals in May.
Less than two months after first falling to the court at Madison Square Garden, Tatum remains in a walking boot — but has already started strengthening his leg and ankle via pool workouts and other exercises.
But as Tatum braces himself for the peaks and valleys that will come with an extended road to recovery, he has sought the advice of one of the NBA’s greats in Kevin Durant.
Durant — who played alongside Tatum during Team USA’s gold-medal triumphs during the 2020 and 2024 Summer Olympics — said the Celtics forward has been one of several players who have reached out to him for advice during this rehab process.
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“Of course, JT and [Damian Lillard] hit me up, I feel like I’m the Achilles guy,” Durant told LeBron James and Steve Nash on the “Mind The Game” podcast. “I think both of those dudes have shown time and time again that they’re going to continue to elevate as individuals and as players. It’s a grind, man.”
Durant suffered a torn Achilles tendon during Game 5 of the 2019 NBA Finals, forcing him to miss the entire 2019-20 season before he played in 35 games during the 2020-21 campaign.
Despite missing nearly 18 months of action, Durant seemingly hasn’t missed a beat since coming back from a career-shifting injury. Since the 2021-22 season, Durant has averaged 36.7 minutes, 28.0 points, and 6.6 rebounds per game.
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Considering that Durant made a full recovery from his own catastrophic injury, both James and Nash asked the 36-year-old forward how he adjusted his game after spending more than a year rehabbing away from the court.
“Those guys are cut from a cloth that they’re rare individuals,” Durant said of Tatum and Lillard. “This is just a little stoppage in their journey that they’re just going to have to sit down and lock in on. I think it’ll be easy for them to lock in once they truly grasp that ‘I’m gonna be out for a year.’
“Initially that takes a few weeks for you to truly understand. This is probably the first time in their whole lives they gotta sit down and not play. They physically can’t play. That’s probably the first time they’ve had to go through that.”
A natural scorer like Durant was able to not miss a step since returning from injury. But, the current Rockets forward acknowledged that players currently rehabbing Achilles tears like Tatum, Lillard, and Tyrese Haliburton will need to change their approach on the court to account for such an extended layoff.
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“Your game and your body is going for sure change,” Durant said. “When you tear your Achilles, your calf muscle goes to nothing. You sit around for three months and you can’t move your calf. If you look at mine now, my right is smaller than my left. But that’s just from not using it for those four or five months. Completely shut down. So that’s most of the work is getting that calf back. You have to get it bigger and stronger.”
Beyond just building strength back up, Durant said that step-back shooters like Tatum and Lillard might need to change their shot selection, especially early on in their return to game action.
“I think that’s going to be the adjustment for them,” Durant said of Tatum and Lillard. “Those deep threes that both of those guys shoot, they shoot a lot of tough step-back threes. I was shooting those before I got injured, and I fine-tuned my game to take some of that stuff out, the sidestep.
“Not because it’s a bad shot, it’s because I didn’t truly have enough power in my right leg yet in order for me to do those moves. So it’s going to be that type of adjustment for guys coming back from Achilles, just building that power up.”
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Despite the hurdles facing Tatum over the next year, Durant expressed confidence that Tatum will regain his form as one of the top players in the NBA.
“Once you get confidence, because I threw myself back out there too. As soon as I could hoop, I was playing,” Durant said. “Once they throw themselves out there, those guys are going to be alright.”
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