In the days since Team USA’s Olympics-opening win over Serbia, there have been numerous explanations from team staff and media alike for why Celtics star Jayson Tatum played as many minutes as you and I did.
Most recently, long-time NBA reporter Brian Windhorst said that Tatum’s absence from the game was necessary given the need for players who could guard Serbia’s bigs and guards, something the three-time All-NBA First-Teamer is apparently incapable of.
The crew from WEEI’s “Jones & Mego with Arcand” reacted to these comments and the debacle in general on Monday. Listen to the entire segment above.
“You don’t need Tatum for Serbia but you need him for South Sudan?,” Adam Jones asked.
“Guess what, they don’t need half the players there that even show up. They could win gold without Jayson Tatum just like they could win gold without Jaylen Brown, but that explanation is maddening.”
Jones wasn’t buying Windhorst’s story about why Tatum didn’t see the court.
“‘Well it was Serbia, they have a bunch of good bigs.’ They have one good big. They have one good player. Tatum probably should’ve played in my estimation,” Jones said.
Meghan Ottolini was equally puzzled by the decision to make Tatum a healthy scratch in Sunday’s game.
“I’m searching for an answer,” Mego said.
“I don’t buy anything I’ve heard from Steve Kerr or from [Brian Windhorst] there. This is so disrespectful to Jayson Tatum.”
Mego argued that if Tatum was going to be left off the court in big games, Team USA shouldn’t have selected him to be on the roster.
“They should’ve just left him off like Jaylen Brown,” Mego said.
“They should’ve just gone with Jrue Holiday and Derrick White. I actually think it’s worse that they brought him over to France and made him just sit on the bench the entire time.”
The move to leave Tatum off the court in the Olympic opener is made even more strange because he was the second-leading scorer on the gold medal-winning team for the Tokyo Olympics three years ago.
Although this year’s squad features more prominent names, like Steph Curry and LeBron James, it’s hard to understand why Tatum didn’t get minutes over less accomplished players like Devin Booker and Bam Adebayo.
Christian Arcand drew a parallel between this ‘disrespectful’ move against Tatum and the equally questionable call of leaving his Celtics costar Jaylen Brown off the team.
“They don’t really care about Jayson Tatum or Jaylen Brown and if they play and if they’re feeling good or getting minutes or any of that stuff. It just doesn’t matter to them like it matters to Celtics fans,” Arcand said.
“I think it was ridiculous not to play Jayson Tatum at all in a game that mattered in the group stage. He’s one of the best players in the world.”
Jones brought up a theory from NBC Sports Boston’s Celtics insider Chris Forsberg, who believed that Tatum’s benching was a signal to other younger players, like Devin Booker, that they would have to sit in certain games.
“It was to create a buy-in on the team,” Jones said.
“I thought that was why Derrick White was here. I thought Derrick White was here to sit, that’s what I thought.”
It’s hard to get a larger anti-Celtics conspiracy off the ground because Kerr is utilizing two Celtics starters. He apparently just doesn't need the two superstars.
“The whole Team USA basketball thing is just a weird situation with the Celtics,” Jones said.
“I don’t know how else to put it other than that.”
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