2024 Olympic BASKETBALL Thread (Pt. 2: Let the Games Begin!)

[Mamba Mentality]

lmfao at the ending of the China/Spain women’s game, some JR Smith level awareness

[DarkAzcura]

That's the difference... you take the best player off most of their teams and most are barely even playoff worthy. You're talking about still being top 4ish.

And even if Tatum/Brown are the constants, they've had an elite supporting cast for almost every year of their careers. People need to see how Tatum looks for a long stretch with a typical supporting cast but not sure if we ever will.

It’s called a team sport, and team building.

He seems pretty happy (as do the other players and they’ve stated it) about taking a backseat to win Championships, and not personal accolades.

That's perfectly fine. No one's telling Tatum to want or expect anything less. It's just when Tatum fans try to use winning as the argument for why he's a top 6 player when most others can see through the argument.

Still a really damn good player, just not the guy who can carry you by himself through an entire season/playoffs. Not many guys fit that label anyways.

If the supporting cast was so amazing, why was Tatum the only all NBA player? First team at that. The evidence is stacking up to a point where your point is not really in line with what’s happening. Did everyone else just underrate all of the Celtics’ players for the whole season? Like I said it is a funny narrative now.

[Bourne85]

To perfectly describe how Tatum isn’t a top 10 player I present you this question.

Put Doncic on Boston and Tatum on Dallas, what happens?

Case closed

You just put a top 3 player as a replacement for Tatum.

Dude, you really need to rethink this.

What happens you ask? Boston wins the finals, Doncic Finals MVP. Dallas makes the 10th seed.

[reload141]

lmfao at the ending of the China/Spain women’s game

What happened?

[ITYSL]

Tatum and Brown did just lead a team on an historic playoff run to win the championship. It is odd that one of them, the Finals MVP, is not even on the team, while the other - who led the team in PRA for the Finals and for the playoffs overall, and who was also the team's 2nd leading scorer in Tokyo - got a DNP CD.

I wonder if anything even remotely similar to that has happened before. In Tokyo, the NBA champion's 2nd and 3rd best players in Jrue and Middleton both made the team, and both played every game.

If you're anything aside from a pure Celtics hater, you'd have to acknowledge that that is very unusual, and maybe unprecedented.

[reload141]

To perfectly describe how Tatum isn’t a top 10 player I present you this question.

Put Doncic on Boston and Tatum on Dallas, what happens?

Case closed

You just put a top 3 player as a replacement for Tatum.

Dude, you really need to rethink this.

What happens you ask? Boston wins the finals, Doncic Finals MVP. Dallas makes the 10th seed.

This is cool I like this game!

Swap Tatum for Fox.

Boston wins the Finals and Sacramento make the 2nd round in the playoffs and lose 4-3.

This is fun!! Let’s do more!

[Ballerhogger]

Read on Twitter

He can’t even see the floor at the end? Is this some sort ritual Kerr is doing

[Mamba Mentality]

lmfao at the ending of the China/Spain women’s game

What happened?

Spain was up three with 12 seconds to go. China milked the clock all the way down to 4 and only managed to get a layup after the commentators were urging Spain to intentionally foul. Then China backed off on defense and Spain essentially just inbound the ball and ran the clock out.

[Bourne85]

Tatum and Brown did just lead a team on an historic playoff run to win the championship. It is odd that one of them, the Finals MVP, is not even on the team, while the other - who led the team in PRA for the Finals and for the playoffs overall, and who was also the team's 2nd leading scorer in Tokyo - got a DNP CD.

I wonder if anything even remotely similar to that has happened before. In Tokyo, the NBA champion's 2nd and 3rd best players in Jrue and Middleton both made the team, and both played every game.

If you're anything aside from a pure Celtics hater, you'd have to acknowledge that that is very unusual, and maybe unprecedented.

It’s not, there’s just clearly way better players on this team. KD, Lebron, Ant and even Booker in this role are better. Curry makes the team better by just standing there. And then there’s guys like White and Holiday that just play their role better. Tatum isn’t bad by any means, but just on this specific team he isn’t needed, same goes for Embiid. I prefer having Bam or AD out there than dumping it down low to Embiid and letting him iso. Haliburton is the one guy that really doesn’t belong out here tho. And I do expect Tatum to get some minutes going forward here. Even if it’s just spot minutes here and there, he’s a good defender and can be brought in for some defensive possessions

[ForeverTFC]

He’s a US citizen. Why is there any question about him playing for team USA? It’s a ridiculous narrative to criticize the guy for.

I’m not criticizing him for playing for the US. I’m criticizing his rationale. He came out and said he’d rather play for Cameroon but Cameroon doesn’t have a good chance to make the Olympics and he wants to win.

If he’s as great as Eyetoma wants us to believe, you’re telling me he couldn’t have teamed up with Siakam and gotten them into the Olympics?

He’s a front runner who always blames others and never takes responsibility. This was yet another example of who he’s been his whole career; weak.

So what rationale would you accept Embiid playing for the US? Obviously he wants to play for the most prestigious team and give himself the highest chance of winning the gold right? What other rationale is out there? So basically, you are criticizing him for playing for the US.

“I want to play for the country I call home.”

The Olympics isn’t about playing for the most prestigious team, at least not to the rest of the world. Athletes have become immortal by simply taking their team to a worldwide competition or getting a win.

[Chuck Everett]

Meh. If anything Tatum not playing now helps the Celtics during the regular season.

[Drax]

Meh. If anything Tatum not playing now helps the Celtics during the regular season.

Agreed. As a non US Celtics fan i would even prefer if Kerr cuts Jrue and White's minutes down aswell. No need after a long season for heavy minutes.

[California Gold]

lmfao at the ending of the China/Spain women’s game

What happened?

Spain was up three with 12 seconds to go. China milked the clock all the way down to 4 and only managed to get a layup after the commentators were urging Spain to intentionally foul. Then China backed off on defense and Spain essentially just inbound the ball and ran the clock out.

The rest of the world is simply not ready for Team USA on either side of the Mens or Womens with play like this.

[Tor_Raps]

It’s called a team sport, and team building.

He seems pretty happy (as do the other players and they’ve stated it) about taking a backseat to win Championships, and not personal accolades.

That's perfectly fine. No one's telling Tatum to want or expect anything less. It's just when Tatum fans try to use winning as the argument for why he's a top 6 player when most others can see through the argument.

Still a really damn good player, just not the guy who can carry you by himself through an entire season/playoffs. Not many guys fit that label anyways.

That’s all well and good, but he got voted 1st Team All-NBA.

We all know that team success plays a big part when getting these type of awards. Still think he's easily a top 15 player at worst and has an argument to be in the top 10 so it's not like I'm saying he's not all nba worthy
So… what you’re saying is, essentially the voters were wrong?

Please note, I’m not saying he’s top 5 but we probably won’t actually get to see him as a 1st option with role players around him, so we can’t make the assumption that he isn’t that good without proof.

[Tor_Raps]

It’s called a team sport, and team building.

He seems pretty happy (as do the other players and they’ve stated it) about taking a backseat to win Championships, and not personal accolades.

That's perfectly fine. No one's telling Tatum to want or expect anything less. It's just when Tatum fans try to use winning as the argument for why he's a top 6 player when most others can see through the argument.

Still a really damn good player, just not the guy who can carry you by himself through an entire season/playoffs. Not many guys fit that label anyways.

If the supporting cast was so amazing, why was Tatum the only all NBA player? First team at that. The evidence is stacking up to a point where your point is not really in line with what’s happening. Did everyone else just underrate all of the Celtics’ players for the whole season? Like I said it is a funny narrative now.

Because Tatum stood out the most from an elite supporting cast. You add practically any player in the top 15 and they achieve the same success Tatum did, not hard to see lol.

[famicommander]

Serbia's bench is even worse than Denver's

[Woodsanity]

Latum's Olympic exhibition stats: 6.4 pts on 46/0/80 shooting, 3.4 rebs, 1.6 asts, 1 stl in 17.8 mins. LeBron's stats: 14.2 pts on 60/46/64 shooting, 4 rebs, 3.6 asts in 20.4 mins

Glad that bum got DNPEd.

[LV-Suns]

Tatum and Brown did just lead a team on an historic playoff run to win the championship. It is odd that one of them, the Finals MVP, is not even on the team, while the other - who led the team in PRA for the Finals and for the playoffs overall, and who was also the team's 2nd leading scorer in Tokyo - got a DNP CD.

I wonder if anything even remotely similar to that has happened before. In Tokyo, the NBA champion's 2nd and 3rd best players in Jrue and Middleton both made the team, and both played every game.

If you're anything aside from a pure Celtics hater, you'd have to acknowledge that that is very unusual, and maybe unprecedented.

Bro, there are 3 Celtics players on this roster. 2 of them played heavy mins today and 1 even started and we won a blowout game against a top international squad. Yet, Boston fans are complaining that there is not a 4th Boston player on the roster and 1/3 got a DNP.

[Patches Perry]

Tatum and Brown did just lead a team on an historic playoff run to win the championship. It is odd that one of them, the Finals MVP, is not even on the team, while the other - who led the team in PRA for the Finals and for the playoffs overall, and who was also the team's 2nd leading scorer in Tokyo - got a DNP CD.

I wonder if anything even remotely similar to that has happened before. In Tokyo, the NBA champion's 2nd and 3rd best players in Jrue and Middleton both made the team, and both played every game.

If you're anything aside from a pure Celtics hater, you'd have to acknowledge that that is very unusual, and maybe unprecedented.

Holiday and White played a combined 40 minutes. Even without Brown and Tatum not playing, they Celtics are heavily represented in the rotation.

I think Tatum will play more in different matchups and different circumstances. It's a crowded lane for him and there's no shame in the guys Tatum lost minutes to today. LeBron, Durant and Booker all played incredible games.

[zimpy27]

Why is Tatum getting dumped on here?
He can't help that Kerr didn't put him in.