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It’s that time of year, some years, when Pete Fenzel convinces Matt Wrather to join a storied 2-hander about the stories emerging from the NBA playoffs. Though really, it is about all of us. Aren’t we all experiencing the loss of Jayson Tatum’s Achilles tendon?

Paying ample respect to the pain and anguish the man himself and those close to him must be enduring in the face of a potentially life-changing injury, Pete and Matt broaden the discussion to the secondhand and thirdhand expressions of tragic grief, especially ESPN Analyst Brian Windhorst’s near-poetical declaration of a “dark cloud” hanging over the hometown victory of the New York Knicks, to the irritation and chagrin of Knicks fans, whose players also sometimes get injured.

From the perspective of a Knicks fan living in the Boston Area for two decades, Peter inducts Matt into the outsider view of Jayson Tatum mythology: the eternal future, the dynastic present brought low, what he means to Boston sports, and why his particular Achilles tendon was of such grave concern to so many, but not that many. They also talk about Damien Lillard for about 30 seconds.

Subtopics include the social role of tragedy; the ancient tradition, often defied these days, of valuing the tragedies of the mighty over the tragedies of the humble; the poetics and practicality of the “championship window;” a tangent about crying at Fuddruckers; and whether and to what degree old broken-down red tractors in children’s books are diegetically sentient.

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Further Reading

• Jason Tatum’s Injury Hangs a “Dark Cloud” Over Knicks Game 4 Win over Celtics, featuring Malika Andrews and Brian Windhorst, on ESPN’s NBA Countdown


• Jayson Tatum: American Basketball Player on Britannica


• The Untold Truth of Fuddruckers by Alexandra Cass on Mashed


• All About Jayson Tatum’s Son Deuce Tatum


• Otis the Tractor: 6-book series, by Loren Long, on Amazon


• For the Fallen, by Laurence Binyon, on Wikipedia


• Musée des Beaux Arts, by W.H. Auden, on Poetry Foundation


• The Story of Bing Bong, by Jacob Forchheimer on GQ