When Jayson Tatum and Damian Lillard went down with Achilles injuries this postseason, it wasn’t just a blow to their teams-it was a jarring moment for the league. The kind that pulls even the most focused players out of the game and into their own heads.
That’s exactly what happened to Kevin Durant in 2019. So when the news broke about JT and Dame, his phone lit up. Both stars reached out. They wanted to know what to expect. How to get through it.
Durant didn’t sugarcoat it.“I feel like I’m the Achilles guy now,” he told LeBron and Steve Nash on the Mind The Game podcast.“They both hit me up. And yeah, I get it-it’s the scariest injury in the game.”
The conversations were real, honest, and maybe even a little heavy. Durant remembered his own comeback vividly: the leg atrophy, the mental toll, the endless months of feeling like a stranger in his own body.“Your calf disappears. It’s just gone. You sit for months and do nothing. Then you gotta build it back up from scratch.”
What It Really Takes to Come Back from a Torn Achilles, According to Kevin Durant
This isn’t a knee tweak or a sprained ankle. It’s a full reset-physically and mentally. “I think the hardest part,”KD said, “is realizing you’re really not playing again for a whole year. That doesn’t hit you until a few weeks in. It messes with your head.”
But Durant also offered something else: clarity. After 18 months away, he came back and evolved his game. Less explosiveness, more precision. Less lift, more angles. And he told Tatum and Lillard that’s where the confidence starts-by tweaking, by adjusting. “You just throw yourself back in. That’s when things start to click again.”
For both players, this is their first major career pause. No court, no crowd, just rehab and recovery. Durant’s advice? Embrace the grind, stay patient, and get ready to hoop smarter. “They’ll be alright,” he said. “I can’t wait to watch their bounce back.”
The road is long-but as KD proved, it can still lead to greatness.
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