Jayson Tatum has been a star player at every level of basketball in his career.
He was an elite high school player. He was one of the best players in college basketball during his one season at Duke. And now he's an NBA champion for the Boston Celtics.
Not getting a lot of playing time hasn't been an issue for him. Therefore, having to deal with getting benched at the 2024 Paris Olympics for Team USA wasn't a familiar situation.
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The conversation and debate over Tatum not playing against Serbia in both the group stage and semifinals of the Olympic tournament were pretty loud. It was one of the most talked about storylines of the men's basketball tournament in France.
What was it like not playing in some games and all the coverage that accompanied it?
“It was a lot. In the age of social media, you see everything,” Tatum recently told The Athletic's Jared Weiss. “You see all the tweets and the people on the podcasts and people on TV giving their opinion on whether they thought it was a good decision or it was an outrageous decision or whatever.
"Obviously, I wanted to contribute more, and I’ve never been in (this) situation. I started playing basketball at (age) 3 at the YMCA, and I’ve never not played, so it was different and it was challenging.”
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Tatum didn't let the outside noise impact his preparation, and in the end, he and Team USA accomplished the ultimate goal of winning a gold medal. Tatum played 11 minutes in the gold medal game against France, which the United States won 98-87. The Celtics star now has two Olympic gold medals after winning his first in Tokyo three years ago.
“I wasn’t moping around. I didn’t have an attitude. I wasn’t angry at the world,” Tatum told Weiss. “I stayed ready and did what was asked of me and I won a gold medal, right?”
In the big picture, it's been a fantastic year for Tatum. And with the Olympics in the rearview mirror, he can begin to focus on the challenge the Celtics face in the upcoming season: Repeating as NBA champions. No team has repeated since the Golden State Warriors six years ago.
“I have two (gold medals) now, I have a championship, and everything doesn’t necessarily go the way you expect it to go, right?” Tatum said, per Weiss. “I’ve learned to be like, ‘OK, that’s a part of it.’ You move on, and I’m getting ready to enjoy the last little weeks I have before the season starts and get ready for another season.”