After being one of the NBA’s ironmen, Boston Celtics’ star Jayson Tatum suffered an Achilles tear during Game 5 of the Eastern Conference semifinals against the New York Knicks. The injury will cause him to miss the majority of next season.

While he faces a long road to return to his standard of basketball excellence, Dwayne Wade believes that Tatum will fully recover and return to All-Star form.

Speaking on his podcast, Timeout With Dwyane Wade, the three-time NBA champion said that he expects Tatum to return to the court, but must have mental toughness.

“Yeah, man, it’s the mental part of it,” Wade said. “ Obviously, physically. This is the generation we’re in, and all of the technology, he’s going to have the best physical therapy, training, and doctors to provide him with the opportunity physically to get back and play the game of basketball at the level he’s used to.”

“We’ve watched it with Kobe, who was one of the first ones that had that Achilles injury later in his career,” Wade continued. “I think Kobe was about 35 or 36 and had that injury, but still came back and was still hooping. We’re watching guys come back, and he’s young because Tatum is like 26. Obviously, physically, he’s going to come back. But it’s the mental part of this journey.”

Wade also shared how his injury history was more of a struggle mentally than it was to rehab physically, and the importance of having a support system.

“Whether it's a knee injury or shoulder injury, whatever the case may be, it's the mental part of it of trying to get back. Are you going to get back to, you know, where you were? I mean, and you got to push through those days,” Wade explained. “You got to push through those hard days. And that's the part that I wanted to watch when it comes to players, you know, how they are mentally, and who they have surrounded them.”