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

[UcanUwill]

Kerr has botched this so bad...I'm not trying to beat a dead horse here but it's pretty pathetic what's happening.

So now Kerr is okay using >10 man rotation or is that because it's a weak team against South Sudan? I just wonder if he told the players prior that he was sticking to a 10 man rotation against only good teams. Or maybe he will rest KD since it's his first game action in 3 months.

Either way - it's just stupid not to play Tatum 10 minutes and avoid this as a story. They would have won either way. Just laughably bad

I really dont understand why its a story. Kerr tried to win the game, also by reasonable margin, and he did that. Yes, in a 40 minute game, some people will not play sometimes. USA has this advantage that they can rest a few guys any given night, KD might not play tomorrow, or maybe Lebron or Embiid wont, or maybe everyone play some.

Kerr is coaching, his job is to win, not to please twitter or smth.

It's a story because there's a line between winning and ensuring you have team morale high amongst all the players...it's also going to be hard to recruit in 4 years when you are singling out Tatum like Kerr did in a very public way. Do you think players want to play for a coach willing to do that? It puts them in a weird position.

People blow this out of proportion. Its been one game, JT is in rotation with KD, KD had an amazing game of the bench, coach rode with him for remaining of that game, it happens. Tatum will play, it was just an opener.

[durden_tyler]

Kerr has botched this so bad...I'm not trying to beat a dead horse here but it's pretty pathetic what's happening.

So now Kerr is okay using >10 man rotation or is that because it's a weak team against South Sudan? I just wonder if he told the players prior that he was sticking to a 10 man rotation against only good teams. Or maybe he will rest KD since it's his first game action in 3 months.

Either way - it's just stupid not to play Tatum 10 minutes and avoid this as a story. They would have won either way. Just laughably bad

This take is bad as your bets. Come on man, they plastered a Serbian team, supposedly one of the better, if not elite, teams this tournament. Whatever rotation was set, worked, and that’s the decision of the head coach.


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[islandkid12]

I really dont understand why its a story. Kerr tried to win the game, also by reasonable margin, and he did that. Yes, in a 40 minute game, some people will not play sometimes. USA has this advantage that they can rest a few guys any given night, KD might not play tomorrow, or maybe Lebron or Embiid wont, or maybe everyone play some.

Kerr is coaching, his job is to win, not to please twitter or smth.

It's a story because there's a line between winning and ensuring you have team morale high amongst all the players...it's also going to be hard to recruit in 4 years when you are singling out Tatum like Kerr did in a very public way. Do you think players want to play for a coach willing to do that? It puts them in a weird position.

People blow this out of proportion. Its been one game, JT is in rotation with KD, KD had an amazing game of the bench, coach rode with him for remaining of that game, it happens. Tatum will play, it was just an opener.

It's the media. A player of JT's caliber not getting any burn would for sure cause annoying media hoopla and, let's not be naive, Kerr had to have known that. Literally some minutes off the bench would've avoided but alas here we are.

[Larry_Russell]

Tatum should be starting.

Curry
Jrue
Tatum
Lebron
AD

[UcanUwill]

It's a story because there's a line between winning and ensuring you have team morale high amongst all the players...it's also going to be hard to recruit in 4 years when you are singling out Tatum like Kerr did in a very public way. Do you think players want to play for a coach willing to do that? It puts them in a weird position.

People blow this out of proportion. Its been one game, JT is in rotation with KD, KD had an amazing game of the bench, coach rode with him for remaining of that game, it happens. Tatum will play, it was just an opener.

It's the media. A player of JT's caliber not getting any burn would for sure cause annoying media hoopla and, let's not be naive, Kerr had to have known that. Literally some minutes off the bench would've avoided but alas here we are.

I think coach should focus on a result not what people will say about him DNPing a guy in one game, he did that and he beat Vice champions of the world by 26 points. People will always complain.

[Doctor MJ]

NBA players treat Olympic basketball tournament like it is an event where you go to live in an Olympic city for a month, with thousands of hottest, fittest, single, young women around you.

NBA players treat World Cup basketball tournament like it is an event where you go to be surrounded by other basketball players for a month.

I think this is the main difference.

Hmm.

Well look it's absolutely true that the Olympics are a much, much, much bigger deal in general than the FIBA World Cup, and thus there are vastly more people traveling to the location for the Olympics, including fellow Olympians.

But let's be clear:

1. Team USA basketball (as well as many other rich Olympic stars) don't stay in the Olympic village dorms.

2. NBA players don't need to be in the City of an Olympic village to have women throwing themselves at them, and if they want to get some without tons of other people knowing, it'd be easier pretty much anywhere else.

[durden_tyler]

Aside from social media trolling/assumptions + Celtics RealGM paranoia, any news/links stating Tatum has reacted strongly to the benching?


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[bisme37]

Aside from social media trolling/assumptions + Celtics RealGM paranoia, any news/links stating Tatum has reacted strongly to the benching?


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He didn't say anything about it aside from a reporter asked if he was sick or injured and Tatum said he's good.

[azcatz11]

Now I feel bad for Haliburton lol. Kerr got shamed into realizing he should play Tatum but Hali is still sitting there and no one cares. What is dude chopped liver?

So going back to 2004 there has only been one legit superstar who didn't play every game and that was Demar in 2016...if you even consider him a superstar that year which is probably debatable. I don't know if he was injured a game that year either.

Besides that, you had Carmelo in 2004 who missed a game and AD in 2012 but they were obviously both super young so not on Tatums' stature.

[UcanUwill]

NBA players treat Olympic basketball tournament like it is an event where you go to live in an Olympic city for a month, with thousands of hottest, fittest, single, young women around you.

NBA players treat World Cup basketball tournament like it is an event where you go to be surrounded by other basketball players for a month.

I think this is the main difference.

Hmm.

Well look it's absolutely true that the Olympics are a much, much, much bigger deal in general than the FIBA World Cup, and thus there are vastly more people traveling to the location for the Olympics, including fellow Olympians.

But let's be clear:

1. Team USA basketball (as well as many other rich Olympic stars) don't stay in the Olympic village dorms.

2. NBA players don't need to be in the City of an Olympic village to have women throwing themselves at them, and if they want to get some without tons of other people knowing, it'd be easier pretty much anywhere else.

Do we know where team USA stays this olympics? In one Olympics, it was just yacht. I think its been reported that they do not stay in Lille, they stayed in Paris, and they travel to practices and games by train, private train i assume.

[UcanUwill]

Now I feel bad for Haliburton lol. Kerr got shamed into realizing he should play Tatum but Hali is still sitting there and no one cares. What is dude chopped liver?

So going back to 2004 there has only been one legit superstar who didn't play every game and that was Demar in 2016...if you even consider him a superstar that year which is probably debatable. I don't know if he was injured a game that year either.

Besides that, you had Carmelo in 2004 who missed a game and AD in 2012 but they were obviously both super young so not on Tatums' stature.

But this team really has no filler. Previous teams would slways have these 11-12th. men, lke Redd, Boozer, Battier etc. Maybe we just need to accept this is a team were Tatum and Hali are 11-12th. men? There is a reason why this tesm in particular gatheted that much hype, its "Avengers".

[Doctor MJ]

NBA players treat Olympic basketball tournament like it is an event where you go to live in an Olympic city for a month, with thousands of hottest, fittest, single, young women around you.

NBA players treat World Cup basketball tournament like it is an event where you go to be surrounded by other basketball players for a month.

I think this is the main difference.

Hmm.

Well look it's absolutely true that the Olympics are a much, much, much bigger deal in general than the FIBA World Cup, and thus there are vastly more people traveling to the location for the Olympics, including fellow Olympians.

But let's be clear:

1. Team USA basketball (as well as many other rich Olympic stars) don't stay in the Olympic village dorms.

2. NBA players don't need to be in the City of an Olympic village to have women throwing themselves at them, and if they want to get some without tons of other people knowing, it'd be easier pretty much anywhere else.

Do we know where team USA stays this olympics? In one Olympics, it was just yacht. I think its been reported that they do not stay in Lille, they stayed in Paris, and they travel to practices and games by train, private train i assume.

Well, this article only says that they'll have one hotel in Paris and one hotel in Lille:

For U.S. hoops stars at the Olympics, one luxury hotel isn’t enough

[islandkid12]

People blow this out of proportion. Its been one game, JT is in rotation with KD, KD had an amazing game of the bench, coach rode with him for remaining of that game, it happens. Tatum will play, it was just an opener.

It's the media. A player of JT's caliber not getting any burn would for sure cause annoying media hoopla and, let's not be naive, Kerr had to have known that. Literally some minutes off the bench would've avoided but alas here we are.

I think coach should focus on a result not what people will say about him DNPing a guy in one game, he did that and he beat Vice champions of the world by 26 points. People will always complain.

Tatum can contribute to that result. Top 10 player in the league and 2nd fiddle to Durant in USA's last olympic gold to end of bench/DNP is odd. We're winning the gold regardless so it's whatever.

[CodeBreaker]

Read on Twitter

?t=YfswEjrffu6fDNUb0BIlfg&s=19

Watch them lose

[UcanUwill]

It's the media. A player of JT's caliber not getting any burn would for sure cause annoying media hoopla and, let's not be naive, Kerr had to have known that. Literally some minutes off the bench would've avoided but alas here we are.

I think coach should focus on a result not what people will say about him DNPing a guy in one game, he did that and he beat Vice champions of the world by 26 points. People will always complain.

Tatum can contribute to that result. Top 10 player in the league and 2nd fiddle to Durant in USA's last olympic gold to end of bench/DNP is odd. We're winning the gold regardless so it's whatever.

USA played brilliant game, especially Durant and Lebron, they barely missed. They had single digit lead that they only got during Milutinov minutes, and they were shooting 12/18 from three. Shooting variant favoured USA, under sligly different circumstances, game could have been way diffetent and far harder. Lets not pretend this outcome was a guarantee. What if Kerr thought KD aint ready and he played Tatum, man, it could have been different story, KD had one of his best FIBA games ever, and hes already one of the FIBA goats.

[bisme37]

I think coach should focus on a result not what people will say about him DNPing a guy in one game, he did that and he beat Vice champions of the world by 26 points. People will always complain.

Tatum can contribute to that result. Top 10 player in the league and 2nd fiddle to Durant in USA's last olympic gold to end of bench/DNP is odd. We're winning the gold regardless so it's whatever.

USA played brilliant game, especially Durant and Lebron, they barely missed. They had single digit lead that they only got during Milutinov minutes, and they were shooting 12/18 from three. Shooting variant favoured USA, under sligly different circumstances, game could have been way diffetent and far harder. Lets not pretend this outcome was a guarantee. What if Kerr thought KD aint ready and he played Tatum, man, it could have been different story, KD had one of his best FIBA games ever, and hes already one of the FIBA goats.

I still have some games from the last Olympics on my DVR haha.

Tatum mostly came off the bench as the 6th man. He and KD played together often but also Pop used them in waves. When KD went to the bench Tatum took over the offense and basically did his FIBA KD impersonation. There was really no letdown from one to the other.

He was only 22 and ended up averaging more points than any USA player in Olympic history not named Durant, Anthony, Jordan, Robinson or Barkley. And the team won a Gold Medal vs much stiffer competition than half of those guys played against.

JT is a really good FIBA player. He's the only current 1st team All NBA player on Team USA. He's been committed to Team USA since before he was even a pro. As we saw in the C's title run, he is more than willing to sacrifice his offense and just set other guys up and rebound and play defense if needed. Or he can score with the best of them.

Not playing him yesterday was very weird.

[_jin]

In the women's tournament, Germany won over Belgium 83-69 and France beat Canada 75-54 with Dominique Malonga playing 8mins and scoring 7pts!
Team USA starts their tournament tonight at 9pm local time against Japan.

[homecourtloss]

Read on Twitter

Australia was like a -6000 favorite…this is crazy.

[Shock Defeat]

NBA players treat Olympic basketball tournament like it is an event where you go to live in an Olympic city for a month, with thousands of hottest, fittest, single, young women around you.

NBA players treat World Cup basketball tournament like it is an event where you go to be surrounded by other basketball players for a month.

I think this is the main difference.

Hmm.

Well look it's absolutely true that the Olympics are a much, much, much bigger deal in general than the FIBA World Cup, and thus there are vastly more people traveling to the location for the Olympics, including fellow Olympians.

But let's be clear:

1. Team USA basketball (as well as many other rich Olympic stars) don't stay in the Olympic village dorms.

2. NBA players don't need to be in the City of an Olympic village to have women throwing themselves at them, and if they want to get some without tons of other people knowing, it'd be easier pretty much anywhere else.

Meh, the Olympic experience is unique. It's a bucket list item for many people, nba players or not. Make no doubt about it, it's a fun time that does not compare to them traveling to a FIBA World Cup or if they just wanted to go out by themselves in some random vacation town.

[islandkid12]

Tatum can contribute to that result. Top 10 player in the league and 2nd fiddle to Durant in USA's last olympic gold to end of bench/DNP is odd. We're winning the gold regardless so it's whatever.

USA played brilliant game, especially Durant and Lebron, they barely missed. They had single digit lead that they only got during Milutinov minutes, and they were shooting 12/18 from three. Shooting variant favoured USA, under sligly different circumstances, game could have been way diffetent and far harder. Lets not pretend this outcome was a guarantee. What if Kerr thought KD aint ready and he played Tatum, man, it could have been different story, KD had one of his best FIBA games ever, and hes already one of the FIBA goats.

I still have some games from the last Olympics on my DVR haha.

Tatum mostly came off the bench as the 6th man. He and KD played together often but also Pop used them in waves. When KD went to the bench Tatum took over the offense and basically did his FIBA KD impersonation. There was really no letdown from one to the other.

He was only 22 and ended up averaging more points than any USA player in Olympic history not named Durant, Anthony, Jordan, Robinson or Barkley. And the team won a Gold Medal vs much stiffer competition than half of those guys played against.

JT is a really good FIBA player. He's the only current 1st team All NBA player on Team USA. He's been committed to Team USA since before he was even a pro. As we saw in the C's title run, he is more than willing to sacrifice his offense and just set other guys up and rebound and play defense if needed. Or he can score with the best of them.

Not playing him yesterday was very weird.

This is what I'm getting at, someone with his NBA stature and commitment to Team USA dating back to 2014, you gotta at least find it a little odd that Kerr thought he wasn't fit for not even garbage time. Had it been any other 1st teamer I'd be saying the same.

Alright I'm done yapping