The most important story popping out of Group USA’s first Olympic pool sport towards Serbia was that latest Boston champion Jayson Tatum didn’t play.
He and Tyrese Haliburton had been the one gamers on the group to heat the bench for all the matchup.
However Group USA head coach Steve Kerr says that Tatum will certainly get to log some minutes within the nation’s subsequent sport towards South Sudan.
“Jayson will play [Wednesday],” Kerr stated in Paris on Monday. “I’m not going to reply your subsequent query, which is that if he performs, who doesn’t. However we’re going to wish him, and a part of this job for me is to maintain everyone engaged and prepared, as a result of my expertise with that is loopy stuff occurs.”
Kerr had beforehand defined that he “felt like an fool” for not enjoying Tatum, however it’s a troublesome job to play everybody when you’ve got one of the stacked Olympic basketball lineups in historical past.
“The toughest a part of this job is you’re sitting a minimum of a few guys who’re world-class, a few of the perfect gamers on Earth,” Kerr stated. “On one hand, it is senseless in any respect. On the opposite, I’m asking these guys to only decide to profitable one sport after which transfer on to the following one. I’ve to do the identical factor. And so, I felt like final night time these had been the combos that made essentially the most sense.”
Now, it appears as if Tatum’s teammate and Miami warmth large man Bam Adebayo will be the subsequent one to overlook out on minutes towards South Sudan, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst is reporting.
“Once they play South Sudan on Wednesday,” Windhorst stated on The Pat McAfee Present. “South Sudan’s obtained a bunch of athletic wing gamers. Tatum’s gonna be on the market. They’re gonna be switching all these screens as a result of he’s gotta play the perimeter. There could also be a man like Bam Adebayo that will get benched in that sport.”
