There’s always a lot of coverage and commentary around the US Men’s Basketball Team at The Olympics. Even before the much heralded Dream Team, the media extensively wrote on which college kids were selected and how they performed, but the coverage this time around has felt different. There’s been a lot more negativity and rumor-mongering than usual, but thankfully, Team USA has found the perfect way to shut it all down: winning big.
The mess started prior to The Olympics when head coach Steve Kerr and company made the surprising decision to exclude recent NBA Finals MVP Jaylen Brown. There’s always some hurt feelings around who gets selected and who doesn’t, but this felt a lot different, as he was vocal about his omission, and fingers were even pointed at Nike. Then, following an injury, the team was given a chance to select another player, and he was not chosen again with the decision-makers instead opting for his Celtics teammate Derrick White. Again, a deluge of stories about behind the scenes issues followed (though there's apparently no problems between Brown and White).
The hope from many observers was that those whispers would die down once the team played its first game, but they somehow got even louder after Kerr elected to sit star Jayson Tatum on the bench for the team’s entire first game against Serbia. He was asked afterwards if he was hurt, but he was perfectly fine. He just wasn’t played, nor was Tyrese Haliburton, as the team cruised to an easy 110 to 84 victory. Not surprisingly, social media exploded with rumors about alleged behind the scenes problems, and many of the major news outlets wrote stories speculating on what happened and whether there would be hard feelings. Numerous NBA stars also weighed on on Tatum not playing, with many ripping the decision.
Then the second game against South Sudan came and Tatum was a surprise starter. He played seventeen minutes and helped Team USA cruise to an easy victory 103 to 86. Problem solved, right? Wrong. Joel Embiid, who started all the team’s warm-ups and the first game, didn’t get off the bench. He didn’t look good in his first outing at the Olympics, and of course, the media covered it extensively and some outlets went wild speculating that maybe there was an issue and he’d been benched in favor of Anthony Davis. Newsweek even wrote a story about it before the team even came out for the second half.
But then the third game came, an easy 104 to 83 victory over Puerto Rico, and Embiid was back in the starting lineup. He played twenty-three minutes and was second on the team in scoring with fifteen points. This time it was Jrue Holiday’s turn to sit out, as the defensive ace didn’t see the floor. The media was told he was resting an injured ankle, but even if he wasn’t, it felt like something had changed. It felt like the media and even fans watching at home and talking on social media had gotten comfortable and settled in. They were starting to trust the process, and also, starting to trust the fact that no one on the team was going to take the bait and create a story where there wasn’t one. In fact, Tatum summed the situation up quite nicely, per NBC…
It’s a unique situation and it’s not about one individual player. The competitor in you wants to play, obviously. But I’m not here to make a story, making it about myself. We won. I was just glad to get back out there and play again (Wednesday). There was a lot of chatter over the last few days but I was in good spirits, I had a good attitude about it. I’m not holding any grudges or anything.
Team USA once again cruised to victory against Brazil in the quarterfinals, and since they were up by twenty-seven points at halftime, they were able to get everyone some minutes, and to date, I haven’t seen a single story about there allegedly being turmoil or behind the scenes problems or people being upset with playing time. It’s all positivity and patriotism.
There was a path in which these Olympic games were a mess of drama for Team USA. It’s still possible we could get there after an ugly loss, but so far, the team has shown the best way to stop gossip, rumors and nonsense is to just win big. That helps spread out playing time and keeps everyone focused on the overarching goal, which isn’t individual stats or personal glory. It’s a gold medal, which is all that matters.
