Chris Forsberg, John Tomase and Tom Giles react to Jayson Tatum being benched in Team USA’s win over Serbia. After the game, Team USA coach Steve Kerr said he, “felt like an idiot,” benching Tatum.
In our minds, there is only one logical reason that Team USA head coach Steve Kerr elected not to play Jayson Tatum in Sunday’s Olympic opener in Paris, and that was to set a tone of sacrifice for a talent-gushing roster hell-bent on a gold-medal finish.
Because there is no other rational reason to bench a healthy, All-NBA First-Teamer coming off a championship season. Kerr admitted after Team USA’s lopsided win over Serbia that he “felt like an idiot” for not playing Tatum, and that would be an accurate assessment if there was any other motivation behind the decision.
Who knows more about the benefits of sacrifice than Tatum?
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One of the key themes from Boston’s title season was the way Tatum embraced a downturn in his scoring -- often drawing criticism for not putting up the sort of loud numbers that other stars produced -- by doing all of the little things that made Boston a better team. All of the Celtics’ top players embraced sacrifice in one way or another and it delivered Boston to a title.
So Kerr can blame the difficulty of playing 12 elite players in a 40-minute game, or point out matchup strategy against Serbia, but this only makes sense if the goal is to be able to have other players embrace sacrifice during Team USA’s Paris residency.
Otherwise, the Tatum DNP just caused an unnecessary distraction after Team USA flexed its basketball muscles in its Olympic opener. The Tatum DNP took away from the successes of his Team USA brethren, including the Celtics guard tandem of Derrick White and Jrue Holiday, who shined in the opener.
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It’s another weird speed bump as the Celtics bask in the afterglow of their 2024 title. July saw the team re-sign or extended many of its core pieces, as Boston will return 13 out of 15 players from that title team. Yet the biggest storylines of the month were the snubs that the All-Star tandem of Tatum and Brown received from Team USA.
Brown vented again Sunday about being left off the roster. He’s absolutely justified to feel slighted, even if Tatum’s DNP only accentuated how difficult it is for Team USA to navigate with a talent surplus.
Kerr’s decision put Tatum in an awkward spotlight. If he was healthy and there was no off-the-court reason to bench him, and Kerr’s goal wasn’t to set a tone of sacrifice, then the DNP is an incredibly odd play.
It would give both of Boston’s stars just another dose of motivation as the Celtics plot a quest for a title repeat. A title was supposed to help Boston’s All-Star tandem gain a measure of respect around the league, but the Team USA slights suggest that hasn’t immediately happened.
Again, maybe this is a forgotten blip in Tatum’s Olympic journey. Maybe his sacrifice becomes a key storyline in Team USA’s march to gold.
But, in the moment, the decision is baffling and leaves us to speculate about motivations.
Now the postgame headlines aren’t just about how well Kevin Durant played, or all the positives from the others that touched the court. Instead, Kerr said Monday that Tatum will play in Wednesday’s Game 2 of group play -- all while dancing around the question of who might sit instead.
Tatum doesn’t get enough credit for all the little things he does. He’s made huge strides as a passer and playmaker. He rebounds. He takes on tough defensive matchups while often guarding players with size. Most importantly, he’s a gamer who the Celtics practically have to beg to take a night off.
And yet he got Game 1 of the Olympics off. Let’s hope Kerr’s decision was strategic, and not truly idiotic.
