Bob Cousy Spent His 96th Birthday Absolutely Cooking Steve Kerr For His Bizarre Treatment Of Jayson Tatum

Make no mistake, the biggest and most important storyline from Team USA's performance yesterday is that they ultimately won the game and are onto the Gold Medal round. What we saw from Steph/LeBron/KD/Embiid in that 4th quarter was as special as special gets and that deserves to be the focus. 

And yet, here we are. Once again, the focus is pulled away from that achievement and instead put on Steve Kerr giving Jayson Tatum yet another DNP-CD. It was one thing when it happened the first time against Serbia and everyone that did touch the floor for Team USA played great, building a 26 point lead. If you wanted to make the case that it would be silly to take someone out who was playing well, fine, whatever. But that was certainly not the case yesterday as Team USA found themselves down 17 points, guys who play a similar position in the rotation were playing like shit, and Kerr still decided that Jayson Tatum shouldn't come off the bench. 

Another bizarre decision that fellow NBA players (including one on Kerr's own team) couldn't seem to understand

The thing is, part of why this is so annoying is because of the gaslighting that comes from Kerr whenever he's asked about this decision that clearly makes no sense, especially in a game where guys are struggling. Talking about a "math problem" and openly admitting that the second unit was dogshit but refusing to change anything was just as bizarre as when he said he couldn't play more than 10 guys after the first Serbia game only to play 11 in the next one. 

In a game where Team USA was struggling defensively on the perimeter, couldn't get a rebound, weren't switching etc, it makes no logical sense to keep a player on the bench who does all of those things. 

Now I get it, it's one thing for me to say that and to call out Kerr for being a Grade A bozo. I'm just a nobody Celtics/NBA blogger. 

Well, how about NBA legend Bob Cousy? He was asked today about what Kerr is doing with Tatum, and he spent his birthday absolutely cooking Steve Kerr

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“I don’t know Steve Kerr, and everything I’ve ever heard about him has been positive. But there’s such a difference between playing a guy for a few minutes as opposed to not playing him at all. And now he has doubled down on it.

“Tatum is on the cover of Sports Illustrated this month. Any experts that I’ve read lately have chosen him in the top five, and sometimes No. 1 in the [expletive] world. Now Kerr is telling the world that he doesn’t agree. In a 40-minute game, if you can’t find five minutes to play somebody on the team without hurting yourself …

“When Kerr did it last week, he was in no danger of losing the game, but in this case they got down by 17 points and he’s got to worry about losing the game. And then to not let Tatum get off the bench — to me, there’s got to be some kind of bias that he’s got against the Celtics. He’s not alone there.

“He’s certainly had an opportunity to access Tatum close up as an opponent. Now he’s got him.

“I’ve been through these emotions from a coaching standpoint. In 1973, I coached an American team that played against the Russians, who had just beaten us in the 1972 Olympics. I had Bill Walton, Ernie DiGregorio, Bobby Jones, Geroge Karl. I had a pretty good unit. So I’ve been through the emotions from a coaching standpoint as to what you deal with in international competition.

“Not playing Tatum at all says to the world, ‘Not only is he not top five, he’s not good enough to get into a close game.’ I can’t figure out Kerr’s thinking, and he’s done it twice, so he obviously feels strongly about it.

“He must think Tatum is a detriment, and I don’t see how he can feel that way and know anything about basketball.”

Now I don't want to question Bob Cousy, but I think even the biggest Celtics homer on the planet (myself probably) would never consider Tatum to be the #1 player on the planet. But everything else? Spot on. 

What makes this entire thing so frustrating is it's ALL self-inflicted. Between Grant Hill and Steve Kerr, there seems to be some sort of obsession with creating unnecessary drama involving the Celtics' two best players, and for what reason? How does this help anything? We're not talking about fringe NBA guys here. We're talking about an All NBA talent who just played a big role on the last Olympic Gold Medal team. In a game where you are getting killed and guys are playing poorly, to still willingly choose to leave Tatum on the bench makes zero basketball sense, even with Tatum's outside shooting struggles. You didn't see Kerr do anything with Steph's minutes when he was shooting 24% from deep in the Olympics and look what happened! He exploded and saved America! 

You didn't see Kerr do anything with Booker or Ant's minutes yesterday despite them struggling on both ends of the floor for the majority of the game. Yet for some reason Jayson Tatum is being punished/excluded? It simply does not make sense.

In the end, all that truly matters is kicking shit out of France and winning another Gold Medal. It's just annoying as hell that Steve Kerr continues to create all this bullshit for no reason and then gaslights you when he's asked about it.