There was nothing he could do.
Writhing on the court in circles, Jayson Tatum clutched his lower left leg. He begged for a timeout. He buried his head in his hands before a Boston Celtics staffer rushed over and hid his face behind a towel. Tatum shook his head, he thumped it lightly on the floor.
For the six-time All-Star, a new reality had already started to set in.
“I remember grabbing my calf and I knew – I knew right away what had just happened,” Tatum told USA TODAY Sports recently. “My body went into shock, and I was squirming on the ground and all these things went through my mind. It was just like, ‘No way. No way did this just happen to me.’ ”
There was a time when Achilles tendon ruptures were considered career-ending injuries in the NBA. Modern medicine has made reparative surgery and its recovery more tolerable, but – because the injury robs players of entire seasons, the rehab is intensely grueling and slow-motion replays often reveal the exact moment when the tendon snaps – it remains the most devastating injury in the NBA.
