Was Steve Kerr wise for benching Jayson Tatum against Serbia?

The United States soundly defeated Serbia 100-84 in the first tilt of the group stage at the Olympics. While the win was encouraging, many basketball fans are talking about the fact that Tyrese Haliburton of the Indiana Pacers and Jayson Tatum of the Boston Celtics did not see the floor at all.

Tatum is fresh off of winning an NBA title with the Celtics in June, as arguably the team’s best player. While Haliburton also received 0 minutes against Serbia, the narrative is mostly focused around Tatum’s exclusion from the rotation. United States head coach Steve Kerr has faced a barrage of questions on the topic.

Kerr told the USA Today, “The key, and our guys know this, is to put all the NBA stuff in the rearview mirror and just win six games.” This quote speaks to the challenge of managing stars’ egos and their roles, as every player on the Olympic team is important to their NBA team and thinks they deserve more. He also said, “I went with the combinations that made sense.”

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Interestingly enough, Tatum’s Celtics’ teammates, Jrue Holiday and Derrick White, were both integral parts of the U.S.’ rotation against Serbia. Holiday and White are viewed as excellent two-way players, but are not seen as the star Tatum is.

It appeared like Kerr may have changed his tune after receiving a lot of attention for not giving Tatum a chance to get in the game. He later told ESPN, “I felt like an idiot” after the game was over.

Former NBA player and All the Smoke podcast host Matt Barnes didn’t think Tatum’s exclusion from the rotation was right. Barnes wrote, “Not sure who’s deciding who’s playing what minutes in these Olympics but for Jayson Tatum to not get any minutes is crazy.”

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Kerr has also gone out of his way to praise the type of player Tatum is, and the coach said that Tatum will indeed have an impact at some point during the Olympic Games. He seemed to indicate that Tatum would almost certainly see the floor in the team’s next game against South Sudan.

It’s interesting how much attention this story has received, considering that the United States passed their first Olympic test with flying colors. Kerr’s job is to get the team to play well in whichever way he sees fit, and they were able to run circles around a solid Serbia team in the first game.

That’s what USA Today called Kerr’s predicament in a reaction piece, but they also defended his decision to keep Tatum out of the lineup. They said it was “clearly the right call”, which is hard to argue with given the results.

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Kevin Durant came off the U.S. bench scalding hot, and Kerr likely did not want to hold him back when he found a rhythm from the get-go. If Tatum is going to see more action, it’ll be interesting to see who he takes minutes from, or whether the Celtics star will play when the game is in the balance.