Does Steve Kerr have any regrets over benching Jayson Tatum in Olympics?

"We can't control the story. So that's this job."

Steve Kerr didn't grant Jayson Tatum plenty of minutes during the 2024 Summer Olympics. Gregory Shamus/Getty Images

November 6, 2024

2 minutes to read

Steve Kerr was posed an interesting question ahead of Wednesday’s matchup between the Celtics and Warriors at TD Garden.

“What’s the loudest you’ve been booed?”

The Warriors head coach and former NBA guard responded with a laugh.

“I don’t think anybody actually cared enough about me to boo me,” Kerr said. “We’ll see how it goes tonight.”

Kerr is expected to be persona non grata on the parquet floor on Wednesday, due in large part to his handling of Jayson Tatum’s minutes during the 2024 Summer Olympics as Team USA’s head coach.

Fresh off securing an NBA title with Boston in June, Tatum, who had already won one gold medal with Team USA during the 2020 Summer Games, became an afterthought in Kerr’s rotations in France.

Under Kerr’s watch, Tatum played the second-fewest minutes of any player on Team USA’s roster during the Olympics — and did not log a second of game action in two games against Serbia.

Even with Team USA winning another gold medal during the 2024 international tournament, Tatum has been vocal about how displeased he was with his limited role with Team USA this summer.

Now, with a motivated Tatum and the Celtics set to battle Kerr and the Warriors on Wednesday, does Golden State’s head coach have any regrets over how he handled Tatum’s minutes?

It doesn’t appear so.

“We can’t control the story. So that’s this job,” Kerr said ahead of Wednesday’s game, adding: “So that can be tough. And I thought from the beginning in Vegas, the whole whole thing was, ‘Hey, we’re in this together.’ “We’ve got 12 Hall of Famers, and we’re just committed to winning, and we won the gold medal.

“So I don’t give it a whole lot of thought, other than, yeah, I didn’t enjoy not playing Jayson against Serbia. Not playing Joel [Embiid] against South Sudan. Those are not fun decisions, but our guys were all amazing and committed to each other. They committed to winning the gold medal. They brought the gold home for their country. They all handled themselves with incredible dignity and class, and that’s the real story.”

While Kerr isn’t dwelling on his rotations from the summer, Tatum seems to have taken out his frustrations on the rest of the NBA. The 26-year-old forward is off to the best start of his career, averaging 30.0 points, 7.4 rebounds, and 5.1 assists per game while shooting 48.1 percent from the field.

Kerr will likely be greeted with plenty of jeers on Wednesday. But the nine-time NBA champion (five times as a player, four as a coach) offered up a sarcastic response when it came to his expected reception.

“I’m sure also a lot of Celtics fans are gonna cheer me for being part of Team USA, winning a gold medal for the country,” Kerr said. “I’m a patriotic American. I love my country. Three Celtics on the team who won a world championship, and two months later won a gold medal.

“Pretty incredible stuff. So, yeah, people can write about whatever they want to write about, playing time or, yeah.”