Jayson Tatum's Olympic heartbreak: "I can't lie. It was challenging."

One of the biggest stories to come out of the 2024 Olympics for the U.S. men's basketball team was the ever-changing role of Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum. After winning his second gold medal, Tatum had some time to reflect on the roller coaster ride.

Tatum told ESPN, "It's definitely challenging and humbling at the same time. I think the tough part is, yes, you can use things to fuel you, but I'm still human."

Throughout the Olympics, head coach Steve Kerr bounced the minutes of several players around, in addition to Tatum's.

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As noted by Bleacher Report, United Stated men's basketball coach Steve Kerr initially put any ideas of Kevin Durant starting for the Olympic team to bed. Kerr said there are "no plans" to bring Durant into the starting lineup ahead of the knockout stage, or at any point for the remainder of the Olympics.

Kerr told Bleacher Report, "If Kevin had been here from Day 1, he would probably be starting. But given that he missed all of our friendlies and came in late, we had kind of established a lineup that we liked."

However, Kerr changed his tune for the gold medal game against France, and inserted Durant into the starting lineup.

Earlier in the tournament, Joel Embiid was benched against South Sudan after having started against Serbia.

Kerr defended his decision, as Bleacher Report quoted him as saying, "This (South Sudan) is the fastest team in the tournament we're going to play. We wanted to match up. They made 14 threes against us in London. The whole game today was going to be about switching and staying in front of people."

However, after Embiid's benching, Kerr said that the Philadelphia 76ers star would start the next game against Puerto Rico. Embiid scored 15 points in his reintroduction into the lineup.

That was the second time Kerr has faced questions about his rotation in as many games.

The United States soundly defeated Serbia 110-84 in the first tilt of the group stage at the Olympics, but the story focused more on how Jayson Tatum was seemingly not good enough to see the floor.

Tatum is fresh off of winning an NBA title with the Celtics in June, as arguably the team’s best player. While Tyrese Haliburton also received 0 minutes against Serbia, the narrative mostly focused around Tatum’s exclusion from the rotation. United States head coach Steve Kerr faced a barrage of questions on the topic.

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Tatum later told Bleacher Report, "You win a championship, new contract, NBA2k25 cover, Sports Illustrated... so after all of this, it's definitely a humbling experience."

Draymond Green, who knows a thing or two about Kerr given their immense success together with the Golden State Warriors, was also critical of the decision to bench Tatum. He told Essentially Sports, "You don't not play Jayson Tatum."

Kerr told the USA Today, "The key, and our guys know this, is to put all the NBA stuff in the rearview mirror and just win six games." This quote speaks to the challenge of managing stars’ egos and their roles, as every player on the Olympic team is important to their NBA team and thinks they deserve more. He also said, "I went with the combinations that made sense."

Interestingly enough, Tatum’s Celtics’ teammates, Jrue Holiday and Derrick White, were both integral parts of the U.S.’ rotation against Serbia. Holiday and White are viewed as excellent two-way players, but are not seen as the star Tatum is.

It appeared like Kerr may have changed his tune after receiving a lot of attention for not giving Tatum a chance to get in the game. He later told ESPN, "I felt like an idiot" after the game was over.

Former NBA player and All the Smoke podcast host Matt Barnes didn’t think Tatum’s exclusion from the rotation was right. Barnes wrote, "Not sure who’s deciding who’s playing what minutes in these Olympics but for Jayson Tatum to not get any minutes is crazy."

Kerr has also gone out of his way to praise the type of player Tatum is, and the coach said that Tatum will indeed have an impact at some point during the Olympic Games. Tatum ended up starting the final two group stage games against South Sudan and Puerto Rico.

It’s interesting how much attention this story has received, considering that the United States passed their first Olympic test with flying colors. Kerr’s job is to get the team to play well in whichever way he sees fit, and they were able to run circles around a solid Serbia team in the first game.

That’s what USA Today called Kerr’s predicament in a reaction piece, but they also defended his decision to keep Tatum out of the lineup. They said it was "clearly the right call", which is hard to argue with given the results.

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Kevin Durant came off the U.S. bench scalding hot against Serbia, and Kerr likely did not want to hold him back when he found a rhythm from the get-go. Kerr has shown that he's not afraid of playing the hot hand so far in the Olympics.