Jayson Tatum injury already (and easily) the worst in this era of Boston sports

It's rare that an injury to someone who is not yourself — or someone you know on a personal level, at the very least — makes you lose sleep.

I think the last time I was here, Gordon Hayward's ankle was pointed the wrong way of the Celtics' championship window. But on Monday night, the sickness returned, as I was left to scour every possible outlet, avenue, and inch of the internet in search of an update on Jayson Tatum. I must've watched the same episode of SportsCenter three times before I realized that no, we were not getting a live update on Tatum. And after about a dozen refreshes, ready for that Shams Charania tweet to hit me like a Sabu steel chair to the head, I had to call it and try to get some sleep.

Sleep didn't make anything better, though, as Tuesday came with the confirmation: It was indeed as bad as it looked, and Tatum has suffered a torn Achilles. An injury that, barring something downright shocking, will absolutely go down as the worst of this era of Boston sports.

Beginning with the immediate impact, the Celtics will be without their top talent for the remainder of their second-round series with the Knicks. And the Celtics have absolutely no room for error, with the club down 3-1 and on death's door for Wednesday night's win-or-Cancun game at TD Garden.

Even if the Celtics pull off the unlikely and win this series in seven games, it's tough to envision the Celtics having enough to go the distance and repeat as NBA champions. Not with Kristaps Porzingis looking like a shell of himself and with even less rest for veterans like Jrue Holiday and Al Horford. The Celtics would also need a lot more out of Jaylen Brown, with Brown entering Game 5 having shot under 40 percent in four of his last six games, including a 9-for-38 mark from deep (23.7 percent), and having committed 20 turnovers over that six-game sample. And in this series with New York, the Celtics when successful have bailed out by two things: Tatum and open three-point shots. Without Tatum, the ability to generate those open threes on non-Tatum bailouts takes a hit.

Again, even if the Celtics escape this series with their hopes intact, it's hard to feel good about what they could do in the third or fourth round.

It's also no secret that the Celtics are as win-now as win-now gets in the modern NBA. With ownership changing and a massive talent load-up that comes with an even greater tax bill, this current C's window is a soft push away from being closed. Changes are coming, and everybody knows it. They aren't expected to be like the ones you saw in 2023, either. Instead, these ones will be more pennies on the dollar to alleviate your bill kind of stuff. Like making a minimum payment on your credit card kind of vibes.

Deep down, I thought the only way to prevent that from happening this summer was to win another championship and present ownership with the opportunity to become perhaps the greatest dynasty of this era of basketball and the potential of becoming the first team to three-peat since the hated Lakers of the early 2000s. That's a legendary, printing money kind of status that's tough to rob yourself of, especially in a city like Boston.

But without Tatum, that seems near impossible. In fact, without Tatum for this year and almost certainly all of next season, ownership's will-we-or-won't-we decision to blow it up may be easier than ever.

It's enough to make 'ya sick.

For the Celtics to assemble this kind of six-man juggernaut and to only walk away with one championship? Get me the green and white puke bucket I haven't needed since the '08 Big Three only won one when they should've had at least two banners recognizing their greatness.

Unlike the missed opportunities of the past where we acknowledged the mortality of a veteran-laden Boston roster, when the Celtics came up short in 2018, 2020, and 2022, we always came back to a simple, "This is part of the process and you gotta lose before you win" kind of rationale (or coping mechanism). We'd cite the ages of Chicago's Michael Jordan and Golden State's Steph Curry when they 'finally' won, and even mention how LeBron James had to leave Miami to get his first. It was all done with the understanding that, yes, the Celtics would eventually get to their level as the absolute best and most undeniable team in the league. And once they did, it would be a multi-championship run that'd make the rest of the sports world go, "Oh my god, Boston's doing it again."

Instead, we're talking about another franchise-altering injury for Boston.

And it's the worst kind. While torn ACLs and Tommy Johns have almost become a rite of passage in sports, Achilles injuries remains a great unknown. Positivity can be found in the way that Kevin Durant rebounded from his torn Achilles, but not every player's recovery is the same, and the timelines can vary. And we're talking about a timeline involving a 27-year-old in the prime of his career, and one who exits the parquet and moves to the recovery room while essentially being his team's best all-around talent as their top scorer, playmaker, rebounder, and defender. Oh, and as an undeniable ironman. He's a truly irreplaceable talent whose return will be a gigantic question mark until proven otherwise. All, again, while in what should be and what was looking like the absolute prime of his career.

Now, to be clear, this is not life and death. The Celtics have obviously been through worse as an organization. But in one lunge at Madison Square Garden, the Celtics went from being an automatic to contend for the next three to four years (we're in year two right now) to a mere hopeful. Leaving the Celtics in the hands of Jaylen Brown and Derrick White, and maybe even Porzingis depending on what the Celtics do or do not do this summer, is not the worst case scenario. But it's no automatic that the Celtics commit themselves to do that given their bills, and it's no guarantee that that's enough star power to get it done, which could lead to more moves to address the aforementioned bills because they become too much.

And then there's the obviously variable of what a Tatum-less Celtics team looks like and what it looks like upon his return. The Celtics experienced this exact thing when the sans Hayward and Kyrie Irving Celtics succeeded for almost three full rounds in 2018, only to completely unravel when everybody had to go back to their originally-designed role the following season in what was the most downright hatable Celtics club of this era.

Given what the Celtics have been through as a veteran, battle-tested squad, you'd like to think that won't be the case when they welcome No. 0 back sometime in 2026. But in this league, you simply never know. Egos have gotten in the way of more dominant dynasties.

With their best player unavailable for the foreseeable future — the C's wouldn't even put an inkling of a timetable on Tatum in their update on Tuesday — it's entirely possible that the window has been closed.

And the fact that we're here, even having to entertain some of these possibilities less than a calendar year after the run truly began, and after everything that it took to get here is enough to keep you up at night.

Or make you throw up.