PARIS – Team USA coach Steve Kerr said Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum “will play” against South Sudan on Wednesday, notable because the three-time All-NBA first-team star was a healthy scratch in the Americans’ win over Serbia.
“I’m not going to answer your next question, which is if he plays, who doesn’t, but we need him and part of my job is to keep everyone engaged and ready because my experience with this is crazy things happen,” Kerr said Monday at the team hotel.
Team USA trounced Serbia 110-84 in the Olympic opener for both teams on Sunday in a game that saw Kevin Durant return from injury. Durant scored 23 points and made his first eight shots off the bench, but his addition to Kerr’s rotation meant a very, very good player would be out.
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That turned out to be Tatum, who was told before the game that Kerr planned to start Devin Booker and take Durant off the bench. Booker, by the way, scored 12 points on four 3s with five assists. Derrick White came off the bench with three key defensive plays, as was his role.
Kerr has stated that Tatum will be on the field against South Sudan, which could mean someone who played well on Sunday will play less or not at all on Wednesday.
“The hardest part about this job is you’re putting at least some world-class guys, some of the best players on the planet, and on one hand, it doesn’t make any sense,” Kerr said. “On the other hand, I’m asking these guys to just commit to winning one game and then move on to the next. I have to do the same thing. And so I felt like last night those combinations made the most sense.”
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Kerr’s omission of Tatum from the lineup sparked widespread interest in America, with pundits and fans alike taking to social media to lambast Kerr for not drafting a player with Tatum’s track record and skill set. Not only has he been selected as a first-team All-NBA player three years in a row and is coming off an NBA championship, but Tatum was also the second-leading scorer on the gold-medal-winning Tokyo Olympic team.
Immediately after the game, while explaining his decision, Kerr said, “I thought I was crazy.” In an interview with ESPN hours later, Kerr said, “I felt like an idiot for not letting someone of Tatum’s caliber play.
But context is needed, something Kerr tried to provide or at least hinted at when explaining his decision.
Tatum seen warming up for the exhibition (Giuseppe Cacace/AFP via Getty Images)
Tatum appeared in all five exhibition games with two starts, splitting time with Booker on the wing while Durant was sidelined with a calf injury. Tatum averaged 6.4 points, shot 47 percent from the field and missed all six of his 3s.
The small forward position was always going to be a pressure point on the USA roster, and the abundance of talent the Americans have there is one reason they sent Kawhi Leonard home. No, he wasn’t moving as quickly as he does when his chronically injured knee isn’t acting up, but Team USA also felt it had enough forwards and not enough defensive-minded guards.
So, for those wondering why White is getting minutes instead of Tatum, even though White wasn’t on Team USA when training camp started – White and Tatum play different positions and do different things. White is a defense specialist, at least when he’s on the Olympic team, and he plays with the second unit to stop the opposing point guard at the point of attack. White scored just two points in 16 minutes against Serbia, but had two huge steals and a key block in the first half while the game was tight.
White’s emergence doesn’t affect Tatum’s playing time, but rather the minutes that could potentially go to Tyrese Haliburton. Haliburton sat out the last two games dating back to the exhibition season and saw his minutes halved in White’s first two games with Team USA in Abu Dhabi.
Kerr could, of course, give White’s minutes to Tatum and adjust the rotation to cover what White is asked to do, but South Sudan plays a guard-heavy lineup that put the Americans under intense pressure during a friendly in London. The U.S. trailed by as many as 16 points in the first half and White was in the midst of a comeback, starting the second half while Kerr tried to open the half with a strong defensive lineup.
“We have to be better prepared for what they’re going to do, the number of 3-pointers they’re going to make, the speed they’re going to play at,” Kerr said of South Sudan, specifically mentioning Carlik Jones, who played 12 NBA games in three seasons and produced a triple-double with 15 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists against the Americans last time out.
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Of the Americans’ 12 players, only White was not an NBA All-Star last season. But he was a key player on the Boston Celtics’ championship team and received a $125 million contract extension.
Kerr could decide to trade Tatum for either Booker or Durant. Tatum could start in place of Booker or come off the bench with Durant starting. Or they could rest Durant, who is recovering from that calf injury, and go back to the rotation that was used during the exhibition campaign when Durant was out.
Kerr, one might assume, could play “smaller” and distance himself from one of his three big men. Of the three, Joel Embiid seems to struggle the most with what’s asked of him (his stats are more plentiful than Bam Adebayo’s, for example, but Adebayo, like White, is largely relied upon for defense.)
In six games this summer with Team USA, Embiid is averaging 9.7 points and 6.0 rebounds. He contributed four points on 2 of 5 shooting with two rebounds and three turnovers against Serbia.
“I think Joel struggled last night but it wasn’t a surprise as he’s been ill the last few days,” Kerr said. “He’s really come into his own before that, his last few friendlies have been his best and so I feel good about him for the future.”
It’s a tough decision, and one that Kerr must make with the best interests of Team USA in mind. As Kerr said, the USA experience shouldn’t be about “NBA BS,” which he said there wasn’t much of on this team. “It’s just going out there, playing and winning,” he said.
“The whole thing about this experience is it’s six games,” Kerr said. “Every game is different. We need everyone. And so sometimes matchups dictate who we play, but we need everyone to be ready to roll and whatever it takes to win that game, that’s what we’ve got to do.”
(Top photo: Garrett Ellwood/NBAE via Getty Images)
