It has been close to two weeks since the United States ruled men’s basketball in the Paris Games, and, still, there remains chatter on how head coach Steve Kerr used — or, rather, did not use — newly minted National Basketball Association champion Jayson Tatum. Never mind that the latter, although professing some prideful hurt over riding the pine in two of the six set-tos they played en route to the gold, understood the vagaries of international competition and the need to find favorable matchups. And never mind that the bench tactician succeeded in meeting the ultimate objective.
To be sure, Kerr found himself in a no-win situation. On one hand, he was blessed with a surfeit of talent that had conventional wisdom providing favored status to the US. On the other, he was hard-pressed to distribute 200 minutes of playing time in a given encounter to 12 bona fide stars. Caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place, he had no choice but to push for what he felt was needed to win and make substitutions with little or no regard for egos. And, from the outside looking in, all and sundry have no justification to second-guess the outcome in the face of achievement.
All the same, Kerr withstood no small measure of criticism for his decisions. Heading into the competition, he knew every little act would be scrutinized. And, to his credit, he accepted the Petri-dish conditions under which he was tasked to forge success. Of course, there would still be no stopping naysayers from injecting their views and painting him as the biased bench tactician. He must hold a grudge against the Celtics for keeping Tatum on the bench, they said, conveniently forgetting that Jrue Holiday and Derrick White likewise donned green and white and yet burned significant rubber.
There was also the not-inconsequential fact that Tyrese Haliburton, who could be contended to have more cause to suit up given the absence of any notable playmakers outside of eventual Most Valuable Player LeBron James, got zero minutes in three contests, one more than Tatum’s tally of DNPs. But why was there no brouhaha over that? In any case, Kerr’s detractors can rest easy moving forward; he no longer figures to pace the sidelines for Team USA. The privilege — and, yes, burden — of leading the charge for the red, white, and blue is slated to fall on either of erstwhile assistants Erik Spoelstra and Tyronn Lue.
Bottom line, Kerr deserves his flowers. For all his supposed missteps, he did his job. Meanwhile, his successors are already prepping themselves for the inevitable backlash. Heavy is the head that wears the crown.
Anthony L. Cuaycong has been writing Courtside since BusinessWorld introduced a Sports section in 1994. He is a consultant on strategic planning, oprerations and human resources management, corporate communications, and business development.
