Athletics has live coverage of Knicks vs Celtics Game 5 in the NBA 2025 qualifiers.
The history of the NBA is built on the rubble of crumbled contenders.
The injury haunts each board on the basketball court. The fact that LeBron James has not undergone a major tear in his career for several decades is not only a feat, it is paradoxical Borderline. Wound, surgery, rehabilitation: it is almost a rite of passage in the NBA, a box that Jayson Tatum must finally conquer.
Tatum was one of the ironmen of the league, but the reality of sport is more difficult than metal. He spent his career to transform a finesse shooter into a bulldozer pilot, then suffered a career change injury in the most pedestrian manner, late in one of the best games in his career.
Everything Tatum has been to postpone his back foot with 3:08 to play in the defeat of match 4 of the Boston match 4 to the New York Knicks, and his career, his team and his league have been transformed. The Celtics announced that Tatum had been operated on to repair his Achilles tendon broken to the right on Tuesday, without calendar to return. The injury often takes 10 to 12 months to recover, but each case is different. This is particularly distinct when he is a 27 -year -old player with another decade of star player ahead of him.
Tatum’s injury sends a seismic wave through the organization of the Celtics, but the aftershocks will be felt throughout the NBA. It is rare that This The player’s caliber suffers This devastating an injury to This catastrophic a time of year in This Seminal for a moment for a marquee franchise.
It is a cruel reminder that victory is a privilege in this league, especially in the most recent ACB, which has more severe sanctions for high salaries. Most years, the best healthy team has won. It is the truest line between the champions.
This moment could broadcast the center of gravity of the league according to what the Celtics then do. The NBA has orbited Boston for most of the last two seasons. There are other teams with young players entering their prime numbers who could be in succession, but except a turnaround of Celtics without a tatum in this series, it will be the seventh consecutive season without repeated champion. There are not many reasons to believe that it will change anytime soon.
Now the Celtics are now entering a complete unknown in this offseason.
The only guaranteed thing is that Celtics will not be the same team next season with Tatum on the shelf for the most part, otherwise. In the persistence of a title, the president of basketball operations, Brad Stevens, said during the draft evening almost a year ago that his goal was to make the Celtics lasting for years and years, even if some of them have broken down and even if they occasionally miss the playoffs.
“But they are just no big hollows,” said Stevens. “This is what we would like. It is difficult to do because the other teams are good too.”
Will it be the principal principle of the rest of the league? Celtics prove that hollows are designed to come more frequently than ever in this new ceiling environment. They should already be $ 37 million compared to the luxury tax line scheduled for next year and run the risk of paying climbing costs on the road if they continue to operate above the second apron in the coming years. The second apron also presents a large transaction and consequences of long -term recovery choice which has more weight now than the team loses its best player. The new rule that freezes their draft chooses seven years seems more intimidating now that the mortality of Tatum is finally shown, even if the stars push their prime numbers in the thirties.
But what depth do they want to dive? What is the consequence if a team as good as the Celtics is entering a complete fire lesson at this stage of its franchise curve? If their players are healthy next season, they could make a big difference for another team of eliminatory series.
The Celtics have represented a monolithic duality, a team that can win by a 3 -point dam or the heroism of its two basic stars. Even if they had lost against the Knicks with a healthy tatum, the story would have been that the Celtics were simply too beaten when the playoffs came. Perhaps a longer offseason and the lessons of this year’s qualifying series would make them more prepared for next April. But all of this could end up with Tatum’s injury.
There is a return route so that Tatum is again a player among the first five of the league, but it will be long. He takes care of his body at a level as high as in the NBA, so he is a good candidate for a return to form.
He has a previous one to follow. Kevin Durant torn his Achilles in match 5 of the 2019 NBA final and missed the following season while the Golden State Warriors landed. The Durant injury (and the possible departure in free agency) was associated with Klay Thompson tearing his ACL in the next match. It was one of the steepest drops of the dynasty to devastation in memory.
But the Warriors were able to rebuild by taking their lumps for a year, reviving their list, then beating Tatum and the Celtics in the 2022 finals a few years later. Boston could take a similar path. The main difference for Warriors: they could reorganize around a healthy steph curry.
The Celtics were the dream of construction of franchise, with two young stars who could carry a competitor as long as they could envisage. Now this dream is fractured, but not broken. What does that tell us about the shelf life of stars agreements in a draconian hood system? Now that the Celtics have decreased the hope of facing next season, we can discover it.
The luxury tax was already imminent, in particular with the transition to a new property. The calculation quantified the value of a championship window before the attrition closes. Now the question is whether the Celtics can keep their window open under this new CBA. The league tries to understand how heavy the weight of the second apron is heavy, because it was born to kill the dynasties.
“It will be interesting to see how it affects the League,” said Stevens during the draft evening last June. “It will be interesting to follow and look back and study over the next two years.”
Now his team will be the key data point that everyone is studying.
The Celtics front office has loaded the long -term cap, signing each member of the basic rotation to long -term extensions outside of Al Horford. The teams are more willing to assume long-term wages these days, because acquiring rotation players through trade is more achievable than the free agency. Boston went on this road with many outings along the way.
They can make their way through this reduction, whether it be a JRUE salary vacation after a hospital season or perhaps the co-star in movement Jaylen Brown for a younger room. (Someone like, say, Cooper Flagg?) A window closes so that another can open.
No matter what is happening, however, the cross-Brezes move faster these days. What is a championship window at this point?
(Photo: Vincent Carchietta / Imagn Images)
