Despite hardly using one of the NBA’s best players, Team USA won its fifth consecutive Olympic gold medal this summer.
So, no, Steve Kerr doesn’t regret his decision to drastically reduce Jayson Tatum’s playing time in Paris.
Tatum saw the second-fewest minutes of any U.S. players and did not play in two of the team’s six games, including its dramatic semifinal win over Serbia.
Speaking ahead of Wednesday’s highly anticipated matchup between Kerr’s Golden State Warriors and Tatum’s Boston Celtics at TD Garden, the head coach said he “didn’t enjoy” deploying Tatum the way he did but hasn’t given it much thought since the Olympics concluded.
“We can’t control the story,” Kerr said. “That’s this job. I tell our players all the time, the NBA is incredibly popular, and the reason it’s so lucrative and a part of the deal is you’re gonna be in the story. So that can be tough. But from the beginning (of Olympic training camp) in Vegas, the whole thing was we’re in this together. We’ve got 12 Hall of Famers, and we’re just committed to winning, and we won a gold medal.
“So, I don’t give it a whole lot of thought other than that I didn’t enjoy not playing Jayson against Serbia, not playing Joel (Embiid) against South Sudan. Those are not fun decisions. But our guys were all amazing. They committed to each other. They committed to winning a gold medal. They brought the gold home for their country. They all handled themselves with incredible dignity and class. That’s the real story. But we live in a time where we have to talk about stuff that doesn’t actually matter.”
Tatum said before the season that his limited Olympic role made Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla “the happiest person in the world” because it gave him additional motivation in the wake of Boston’s NBA championship. The three-time All-NBA first-teamer certainly has looked motivated so far this season, playing at an MVP level through the Celtics’ first eight games.
Asked about potentially being booed by Celtics fans, Kerr noted the strong Boston influence on Team USA’s roster. Jrue Holiday and Derrick White also were part of the gold medal-winning squad.
“I don’t think anybody actually cared enough about me to boo me,” Kerr said. “But we’ll see how it goes tonight. But I’m sure also a lot of Celtics fans are gonna cheer me for being part of Team USA, winning a gold medal for the country. I’m a patriotic American, I love my country. Three Celtics on the team who won a world championship and two months later won a gold medal. Pretty incredible stuff.
“So, yeah, people can write about whatever they want to write about, playing time or whatever.”
