Jayson Tatum’s Team USA role has been the topic of a lot of scrutiny over the past few weeks.
Many expected Tatum to have an important part in the American side’s gold medal aspirations.
Instead he wound up getting benched for the entirety of the first game of the Olympics. It was arguably the second-biggest hoops-related story of the tournament so far outside of the French referees blatantly rigging games for the home team.
This week Golden State Warriors star Draymond Green offered his take on that.
“With Jayson Tatum and Tyrese Haliburton not playing a single minute in game one, which was crazy,” Green said.
“You don’t not play Jason Tatum that man just won a NBA championship, cover of NBA 2k, cover of Sports Illustrated saying cheers, just signed the biggest contract in NBA history. Oh, by the way, your reward is sit down and don’t play it in the first Olympic game.”
“You don’t, not play Jayson Tatum. That man just won an NBA championship, cover of NBA 2K… [He] just signed the biggest contract in NBA history. Oh, and by the way, your reward is sit down and don’t play in the first Olympic game.”
— Draymond Green 👀pic.twitter.com/x0OgbypRs2
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) August 4, 2024
In Green’s estimation, two different players should have been benched instead of Tatum.
“So when you’re going into that game my thought process was if you’re not going to play two guys, the two guys you’re probably not going to play as Tyrese [Haliburton] and Dereck [White],” Green continued.
“And in 2021, our team, our offense was built around Jayson Tatum and Kevin Durant. And it was almost kind of set up as though like KD [Durant] was passing the torch to JT [Tatum] and then JT come out and not play. I couldn’t believe that.”
Green’s take is all the funnier because the person who decided to bench Tatum, Steve Kerr, is his coach on the Golden State Warriors.
Will Kerr heed Green’s advice and give Tatum more playing time as the Olympics chug along? Time will tell.
Jennifer Withers Hoey is a former Business Development Manager who transitioned to writing about sports. With valuable connections all over the West Coast, she has used those contacts to break some of the most interesting stories pertaining to the Portland Trail Blazers, Oregon Ducks, LA Lakers, LA Clippers, Seattle Supersonics (RIP), and more.
