Team USA escaped Serbia to reach the Olympics gold medal match by a hair. There were obviously a lot of questionable calls that Steve Kerr made during the whole matchup. However, one stood out the most and it was Jayson Tatum sitting on the bench. The Boston Celtics star did not get a lick of playing and this infuriated a lot of fans. One of them perhaps may be the greatest fan of the superstar.
Brandy Cole, Jayson Tatum's mother, threw some shade at Steve Kerr and the rest of the Team USA coaching staff. The Celtics superstar's mom retweeted a post by Dan Greenberg of Barstool Sports which may outline what she felt when her son was just left sitting there.
The post said, “If Kerr is watching this and willingly deciding, ‘Yeah, Jayson Tatum couldn't help here.” Then, he legitimately cannot coach in 2028.”
Tatum was not the only one who could not get any sort of opportunity to play in this matchup against Serbia. Tyrese Haliburton also could not crack the rotation at all despite what he displayed in the 2024 NBA Playoffs. Moreover, this is also not the first time that the Celtics star was not fielded. He also did not see any minutes in their first meeting against Nikola Jokic's Serbia for Team USA's Olympics opener.
Steve Kerr's apology after benching Jayson Tatum in their first Olympics game
There has been no substantial reason why Kerr has not fielded Tatum in both outings against the same team. However, rotational fits could be an issue which is why the Team USA head honcho made the call. In the past, Kerr already apologized for not playing the Celtics superstar, via Noah Camras of Newsweek.
“Jayson handled it really well. I talked to him today before the game that it may play out this way just with Kevin coming back and the lineup that I wanted to get to. But that'll change. Jayson's gonna play. Every game's going to be different, based on matchups. Jayson's First Team All-NBA, three years in a row. I felt like an idiot not playing him. But in a 40-minute game, you can't play more than 10. You really can't,” the Team USA coach said after their campaign opener.
Understandably, Brandy Cole and the rest of the Celtics faithful may already look at Kerr's apology as insincere. The fact that Team USA was down by double digits at the half and Tatum was not considered during the rotational change made the situation even harder to understand.
Will Brandy Cole be able to see his son play in the Olympics gold medal match?
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