The biggest story coming out of Team USA's first Olympic game against Serbia was that Boston's eventual champion Jayson Tatum did not play.
He and Tyrese Haliburton were the only players on the team to warm the bench all game.
But Team USA coach Steve Kerr says that Tatum will definitely be able to play a few minutes in the country's next game against South Sudan.
“Jayson will play [Wednesday],” Kerr said in Paris on Monday. “I will not answer your next question that if he plays, who does not play. But we're going to need him, and part of the job for me is to keep everyone busy and ready, because my experience with this is crazy things happen.”
Kerr previously explained that he “felt stupid” for not playing Tatum, but it's a tough job to play everyone when you have one of the most loaded Olympic basketball lineups in history.
“The hardest part of this job is you're sitting at least a few world-class guys, some of the best players in the world,” Kerr said. On the other hand, it makes no sense at all. On the other hand, I'm asking these guys to just commit to winning one game and move on to the next. I have to do the same thing. So, I felt like last night was a very logical combination. “
Now, it appears that Tatum's teammates and Miami hotshot big man Bam Adebayo may be the next to miss minutes against South Sudan, ESPN's Brian Windhorst reports.
“If they play against South Sudan on Wednesday,” said Windhorst The Pat McAfee Show. “South Sudan has a lot of players who run. Tatum will be there. They're going to be changing all those screens because he has to play the perimeter. There might be a guy like Bam Adebayo who gets benched for that game. “
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