One of the biggest questions of this summer was whether Boston’s two stars, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, would spend too much of it satisfied with themselves to come back with the same fire and venom that drove them to their first NBA championship.
They are, of course, the hottest things going after they finally made it to the mountaintop. Everyone wants a piece of the champs; to be seen with the freshest “it” guys. The parties, and compliments, are plentiful and the drinks are free. It would be very easy to enjoy gorgeous summer days in exotic locales where most of the lifting is of drinks off a waiter’s tray.
But USA Basketball may have squashed all that. Because instead of coronating the Jays by making them big parts of an Olympic gold medal quest, they have basically told them both that their participation isn’t exactly critical to the team’s success.
Congrats on your NBA championship, fellas, but we’re gonna let the big boys handle the heavy lifting here in Paris.
Brown was left off the team completely, a decision which has clearly irked the Finals MVP. Three of his teammates are on the team, one of whom was chosen over him, but his talent wasn’t enough to overcome sponsor politics and the need for a better fit.
And then Tatum, who had been used sparingly in the exhibitions, wasn’t used at all in Team USA’s romp over Serbia.
"It's really hard in a 40-minute game to play more than 10 guys,” Kerr told ESPN’s Brian Windhorst. “With Kevin (Durant) coming back, I just went to the combinations that I felt would make the most sense. It seems crazy. I thought I was crazy when I looked at everything and determined these are the lineups I want to get to.”
To be fair, there is a point to the eight fewer minutes of basketball. It’s easy to find Tatum 16 minutes of playing time if half of that comes from simply having more time on the clock. On the other, there are curious decisions that didn’t work -- that haven't worked -- where Kerr could make a different choice.
Kerr stuck with his starting rotation of Steph Curry, Devin Booker, Jrue Holiday, LeBron James, and Joel Embiid and slotted Durant into Tatum’s spot off the bench, essentially swapping one for the other. But Embiid was a -11 in his first-half stint and the American went into halftime up only nine. In fact, the game didn’t fully get out of hand until late in the fourth when Team USA poured it on because point differential matters.
Through it all, Tatum sat on the bench and played the good teammate role.
“I went with the combinations that I felt like would make sense and talked to him, and he's incredibly professional,” Kerr told ESPN. “That doesn't mean it's going to stay that way the rest of the tournament, so he'll make his mark. ... Jayson is the ultimate pro and champion and he handled it well and he's going to be ready for the next one."
He will. But no matter what happens moving forward, internally, he should be seething.
The one competitive disadvantage every American team has on the basketball court is their lack of continuity. They make up for it with immense talent, but against increasingly competent competition, it can take a while for the talent to do what it needs to do. But this particular United States team has three players who played massive roles on a team that won a championship mere weeks ago.
Is Steve Kerr going to say with a straight face that there's no value in putting Tatum, Derrick White, and Jrue Holiday on the floor together? Can anyone argue that those three on the floor with Bam Adebayo and Anthony Davis would be anything other than the most stifling defense the Olympics has ever seen? Those five together are a walking 15-0 run just from all the stops, fast break, and three-point plays they’ll generate. But have we seen that on the floor once since this team was assembled?
No. And we probably won’t.
We won’t because Embiid continues to get minutes even though it’s become painfully clear that he’s not right for this team. The only explanation for him to be on the floor is that Grant Hill and Team USA promised him a major role if he chose the American team over France or Cameroon. Embiid, who probably sees the writing on the wall in Philadelphia, obviously chose Team USA to chase a medal. He wants to finally win something and he wants to say he was a reason why.
Those minutes should be going elsewhere. They should be going to Davis and Tatum should be paired with Adebayo off the bench. Booker’s minutes should be limited as well, but maybe Kerr feels like being nice to Booker now means Booker will put the Warriors on his shortlist for whenever he demands a trade.
All of this adds up to Tatum being squeezed out. And Tatum being squeezed out means whatever internal fire might have dimmed in the aftermath of Boston’s championship should be raging to win another one.
Circle the Warriors on the schedule when that's released in a few weeks. And keep an eye on whenever Hill is a color commentator for this final season of the NBA on TNT. Watch for how Booker is defended when the Celtics face Phoenix, or for the vigor behind the double teams against Embiid and the Sixers (the Olympics show he still can’t handle them).
Team USA will win gold with or without Tatum. At this point, the more “without” there is, the better it will be for Boston. If we ever wondered where the motivation to dominate the league again would come from for Tatum and Brown, we can stop our search. Team USA has provided all Tatum and Brown need.