Report: Jayson Tatum plead 'why me' to father after Achilles tear

Jayson Tatum‘s torn Achilles tendon was the biggest story coming out of Game 4 of the Eastern Conference semifinals between the Boston Celtics and New York Knicks. Now, reports of Tatum’s reaction to his injury behind the scenes have surfaced.

According to ESPN senior NBA writer Marc J. Spears, one of the first people Tatum contacted was his father. At the time, Tatum’s father, Justin, who is the head coach of Pelita Jaya of the Indonesian Basketball League, was on the road traveling to a game in Mongolia watching the game on his tablet when he saw his son go down with the injury.

“He said that within 10 minutes, Jayson’s mom called him, Brandy, told him what had happened. He got off the phone and started bawling,” Spears said. “He told me, walked away from his team to try to collect himself, and Jayson ended up giving him a call once he was able to. They cried on the phone together, and Jason was asking him, ‘Why me, Dad, why me? Why does this have to happen to me?’

“And he said, ‘Son, this is, this is God’s will. You’re young, you’re going to get through this. And he reminded him that Kobe (Bryant), your idol, got through this.”

He revealed that Tatum is expected to be sidelined for roughly eight to nine months. That would put the Celtics superstar out of action past the start of the next NBA season. His surgery was performed by the same doctor who operated on both Kevin Durant and Tiger Woods‘ respective Achilles injuries.

After the surgery was complete, Justin Tatum said that he volunteered to leave Asia to be with his son but Jayson urged him to continue coaching his team. While Tatum underwent the surgery the next morning and is expected to make a full recovery, his father told Spears that he’s worried about his son mentally as he’s never had to experience an injury of this magnitude in his basketball career.

In Tatum’s eight seasons in the NBA, he’s never had to miss significant time with injury. The least amount of games he’s played in a season was 64 during the 2020-21 season and that was because the pandemic limited the number of games the Celtics played that year. Now, he’s going to have to overcome an adversity he’s never faced before as he begins the post-surgery healing process.