We are just over one year away from the start of last year's NBA Finals between the Oklahoma City Thunder and your very own Indiana Pacers. That means we're also one year away from a playoffs in which we saw three big stars – Jayson Tatum, Tyrese Haliburton, and Damian Lillard – tear their Achilles tendons.
Achilles tears were long seen as career-enders. For decades, the best you could hope for was to go the Dominique Wilkins route, which is hard because... you know... that's Dominique Wilkins.
However, things have changed. The first of the group was Wesley Mathews, who went from a great 3-and-D wing to a very good bench piece. Then there was Kevin Durant, maintaining superstar status despite suffering one of the worst injuries in any sport.
Now, two of those three fallen playoff stars have yet to play a game, more than a year after they last saw the court.
In the third of the three, Jayson Tatum, we see exactly what the Indiana Pacers should be avoiding while preparing for their own glorious homecoming.
Bad decision by the Celtics
There was a point last year where the Boston Celtics had the best vibes of any team in the league. They ran a deep rotation and were getting massive performances from Sam Hauser to Neemias Queta, players who were castoffs and late picks.
That so quickly fell apart when Jayson Tatum returned early from his year-long rehab and completely tanked the team's energy.
That's not a slight to Tatum. It is honorable to try to show up for your team. By all accounts, this had nothing to do with now Philadelphia 76ers forward Jaylen Brown getting shine as the first option and being a vote-getter for MVP.
No, it has to do with timing and what Tatum could and couldn't do as a limited version of himself.
There was no situation in which he would take a backseat role, and no situation in which that extended rotation would not get pared down to find the requisite minutes for the superstar forward.
However, the integration of Tatum came at the expense of Brown, Hauser, and Payton Pritchard. It also didn't help that Jayson's on-ball juice failed to appear, leaving Tatum as more of a stretch four when the team needed the star of their dreams.
The Celtics would go on to blow a 3-1 lead in the first round of the playoffs to the 76ers, and they blew up their team months later.
What this means for the Pacers and Tyrese Haliburton
Tyrese Haliburton has never been the ball-stopper that Tatum has been. He is a connective piece who has never registered over 30 percent usage despite being the Pacers' lead ballhandler. In that way, bringing him in at a lower scale doesn't provide the same issues that Tatum would.
However, as much as the worry of that integration was about playstyle, it was also about timing.
The Pacers must avoid disenfranchising a player like Andrew Nembhard and take their time giving Hali an extended run for his own sake. Despite the new age of medicine making Achilles injuries far less intimidating, there is still a psychological aspect.
Everyone can tag Tyrese in like it's 2K with a player being injected into the rotation, but the interpersonal aspect of a team takes so much more care than it does in a video game.
Rick Carlisle will have his hands full with Joe Mazzula's failures as a barline for what to avoid.
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