The Stephen A. Smith ShowStephen A's Take: Olympic Coach Kerr, Jayson benched, now starting?
Stephen A. Smith is a New York Times Bestselling Author, Executive Producer, host of ESPN's First Take, and co-host of NBA Countdown.
The USA men's basketball team was once again dominant yesterday, beating South Sudan one O three to eighty six to improve the two to zero and lock up a spot in the quarterfinals. All Oys won Steve Kerr's roster decisions after not playing Jason Tatum or Tyrese Haliburton in.
The team's first game versus Serbia.
Tatum was in the starting lineup, finishing with ten points and five boards, while Halliburton chipped in with six points in eight minutes off the bench. Meanwhile, Joel Embiid went from starting in game one to being the only guy who did not see the floor In the second game, Anthony Davis started, but it was Bam Outebayer coming off the bench, who had maybe his best game for the national team with eighteen points and seven rebounds. Asked about people questioning his lineup decisions after the game, Steve Kerr had this to say, quote, the NBA is so popular worldwide, and the regular season is kind of a soap opera, and so we understand that, and social media takes over and everything becomes so dramatic. I think we need to give these guys more credit. They're here to win a gold medal, they're pros, they're committed to each other.
End quote.
Final game of a group play will be Saturday at eleven fifteen am easton Standard Time.
Versus Puerto Rico. For those of you who care, here's the deal. That's a real easy thing for coach Steve Curtisy.
And it's not that he's wrong in any way. It's just that it's not that simple, Ladies and gentlemen. Tyrese Halliburton didn't play. We didn't say anything about that. You know why we didn't say anything about that when he didn't play, you know, the other day when Jason tATu was bench because Tyrese Halliburton is a young guard, he was and the players. Although Indiana got to the Eastern Conference finals against Boston this year, you know, we understand that there's levels to this. And when you look at the Drew Holliday and when you look at some of the other talent that exists on Team USA, all right, it's gonna be pretty difficult for him to crack the lineup and stuff like that. We understand that. For the most part, what we're saying is that Jason Tatum is a superstar in this league. He's the reigning defending NBA champion. See when we sit up there and we talk about this kind of stuff, this is the thing that drives me nuts. Everybody act like they don't understand what the hell I'm talking about. It's Jason Tatum. We understand the greatness of Kevin Durant, maybe the greatest basketball Olympian ever.
We understand who Lebron James is. We also saw Team USA beat Serbia about twenty six points. You can't find time for somebody like that.
You're talking about, Oh, it's very difficult to play more than ten, Well, what ten players are better than Jason Tatum. He's six ' nine that could play the one, two, three, or the four position when you bench em bed, that's understandable.
You're going against South Toudan. They're running up and down the floor.
Their success is primarily predicated on perimeter shooting.
Joel ANDBD is never one hundred percent healthy.
He's had foot injuries, he's had knee injuries, he's had back injuries. That might not be a game his all world talent needs to participate in.
We understand that Jason Tatum was healthy.
Jason Tatum is spry, Jason Tatum is six a Hein's a six ' nine dude that can play guard and forward. He can play four different positions. What possible excuse could you have for sitting him on the bench and then to tell him beforehand this ten dudes.
We're gonna play for you. Well, let's go down the list.
Who's approaching forty the bam out of bios of the world along with Anthony Davis. That's a given they're playing the five for you. We got that Kevin Durant. Sure go play Kevin Durant ahead of him. I got Dad Deren Booker, Drew Holliday, Derek White. You got two dudes that are his teammates for the Boston Celtics whose job is to defer to him. But in the Olympic competition, he's riding a bitch while they're playing.
Stop it.
Stop acting like y'all don't know what the hell I was talking about.
You know exactly what I'm saying.
First of all, you should be able to find a way to play more than ten dudes in a twenty six point victory, because guess what, you're that superior. You actually could find a way to do that. But that's neither here nor there. But when you elect to betch somebody, you could have been Derek White, who's been playing well. I understand that you could have been you Holiday like you did to insert Jason Tatum into the starting lineup for the game against South Sudan with Steph Curry to backcourt.
What's the problem.
We weren't talking about Steve Kerr and his coaching in terms of, oh my goodness, you only played ten.
Dudes, not all twelve dudes.
We were saying you went to Jason Tatum before the game and said, we're probably not gonna be able to find you minutes to a twenty seven point per game scorer or All NBA First Team in the last three years, who is the reading defending NBA champion and he flying across the ocean to participate in the Olympic competition to sit on the bench.
Y'all don't understand that.
Y'all don't understand now, that is not something that is supposed to happen to somebody the caliber of Jason Tatum.
Do that to Derek White, Tyrese Haliburton.
And I'm not saying that they don't deserve to play because they're quality players. I'm saying, if you're gonna do something like that, do that to them, Do that to a Joel Ebid against the South Sudan because we don't want Joel and.
Be running up and down the court like that when you don't.
Really have to worry about an opposing big man because that's not what their squad's success is predicated on. So this is a game you probably would be able to take a rest. I saw a Bam out of Bio clapping back of my man Brian Windors, because Brian Windor suggested that one of the bigs on wasn't going to play, and he suggested it would be Bam out of Baier instead of Joel and b and Bam took some kind of offense at that and tweeted something out with some lyrics from fifty cents.
I got all of that, But Bam out of.
Bairo has a point because he can run up and down the floor in a way that Joel and bed might find problematic. So you need to set this one out, big fella. That makes total sense. Just like if you decided to bench Jason Tatum in the game against Serbia while you got a knee and you got an ankle injury, or you got a back injury.
We need you to sit out for this one. We got this coverag.
That makes sense, But to set up there and go to him before the game, knowing he had no physical ailment whatsoever, knowing he was ready to go, and to look him in the face with a straight face and say, well, we gonna probably bet you because we got ten other dudes.
That we're comfortable playing before you.
How could you not think that would affect him?
How could you not think?
How could you think that would That's a good thing, That's all I'm trying to say. I see people coming after me, and they'll remain nameless, because there are people that's trying to come at me. That's in this business. They just want clicks and they just want to be heard because nobody gives a shit about them when they're on the air, So they're trying to get attention for me, and I'm not going to give it to them. But to challenge me like you don't know that I'm making sense? Come on, man, come on, y'all. You disagree, you disagree, I got I got that part up. Come on, It's a salient and decent argument. That I'm making. It's Jason Tatum. We're talking about. It's Jason Tatum. That's all I'm saying. That's all I'm saying. It's Jason Tatum. No, he doesn't have the person out of there scizzles and you love seeing it with his son pregame and post game, during the interviews and all this other stuff.
The brothers a hell of a player, and he's a champion, and he's the reigning champion.
He's an All NBA First Team player for three consecutive years.
He's the real deal.
He is not somebody that you sit on the bench seventeen minutes just four points and all of this stuff the other day, So.
What, so what?
I don't give it m If he scores no points, he can't have zero minutes.
Because you got ten dudes that should be out there before him.
That's nonsensical. And it's not about coming to win the goal. We know that the ultimate that's the ultimate priority.
But Steve Kerr has achieved too much to not know how that looked.
Just because he was classed for sidified and professional and called it a humbling experience for him, doesn't mean he wasn't pissed off, doesn't mean he wasn't hurt, doesn't mean he wasn't embarrassed. And if Steve hurts, Steve Kerr was so so right and so righteous. How he go from playing zero minutes to being in the starting line of the next game because you know you shouldn't have done that shit to begin with, period,
