Jayson Tatum admitted he was taken aback by his benching during Team USA’s opening 2024 Olympics game against Serbia last weekend.
In an interview with The Athletic, Tatum, 26, called the game a “humbling experience” after all he has accomplished since his Celtics won the NBA title in June.
“Definitely a humbling experience, right?” Tatum said of his benching against Serbia. “Win a championship, new contract, cover of (NBA) 2K and then you sit a whole game. Cover of Sports Illustrated. So it was definitely a humbling experience.”
Tatum, a five-time All-Star, didn’t get into the game during the 110-84 win despite playing 17.6 minutes per contest during Team USA’s five Olympic exhibition games.
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Against South Sudan a few days later, Tatum started and played 17 minutes, scoring four points with five rebounds and two assists.
In that game, Joel Embiid was the NBA superstar who couldn’t crack head coach Steve Kerr’s rotation, once again setting social media ablaze.
With all the chatter surrounding his lineup decisions, Kerr maintained to The Athletic that everyone on Team USA is committed to a goal much larger than who gets more court.
“I mean, these guys are all champions, All-Stars, Hall of Famers, however you want to put it,” Kerr said. “So the whole thing is, are we committed to the goal? That’s it. I always tell our guys with the Warriors, the reason they pay us a lot of money is there is so much interest worldwide in what we do. And so you can’t have it both ways. You can’t accept your salary and then get mad at social media or get mad at all the coverage.
“The beauty of the Olympics is none of that crap matters. And I know everyone’s going to write about it, but none of that crap matters. We’re just trying to win every game and win a gold medal, and it’s an incredibly pure feeling and the guys are committed to each other and they’re not going to worry about any of that.”
The United States will take on Puerto Rico in their final group play game on Saturday morning.