Jayson Tatum looks to be on track to return from an Achilles injury in record speed, but Charles Barkley doesn’t see that as a good thing.
Tatum ruptured right Achilles tendon in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals against the Knicks in May.
There were rumblings he would return in 8-9 months – which is around this time now.
No timeline for his return has been officially set, but he had a workout on the court which lasted an hour in Detroit last week, complete with dunks.
Barkley thinks Tatum should not be rushing to get back on the court.
“I got a bad feeling Jayson Tatum is coming back,” Barkley said on Inside the NBA. “Normally, when guys have an Achilles, they are out for a year. What I saw him doing last week, he’s going to come back this year.”
Chuck was then asked about where this bad feeling stems from.
“It’s a great thing but I don’t think we ever had a player come back from an Achilles [this soon],” Barkley said. “This dude out here dunking and everything. He’s got another four or five months to go. They wouldn’t have put him in front of the media in my opinion. They did that intentionally.”
Fellow Hall-of-Famer Vince Carter agrees.
“Take your time, young fella,” Vince Carter said of Tatum on NBC last week. “It’s no rush because if you’re going to do this, do it right the first time. You don’t want to consistently be in and out of the lineup, or something else goes bad. Just do it right the first time.
“Sometimes, as athletes, we need to be saved from ourselves. And don’t rush this process. They’re going to make the playoffs. Don’t rush back just because you’re feeling good, man.”
Tatum recently admitted he considered retirement after the injury.
“Sitting in that doctor’s office, and seeing the doctor put that MRI scan and seeing that, line through my tendon, I just remember sitting there and I broke down crying,” Tatum said on The Pivot Podcast. “And I remember saying like, ‘man, I can’t do this.’ Because I just knew how hard it was going to be. And I felt like this was the best version of Jayson Tatum has ever been. And now it’s like, ‘damn, I got to start over.’ And I remember saying, ‘I can’t do this.’”
“And you know, it took time. It was a few weeks where I thought about like, ‘Damn did I make enough money, did I accomplish enough’. Like it was some moments like laying in my house with my foot up where I thought like, ‘Damn, I might be done.’”
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