On a stacked USA Basketball men’s squad, some players were going to end up as the odd men out of the rotation some nights. One of those ended up being Jayson Tatum in a surprise to many (especially in Boston), but with a stacked roster of forwards headlined by LeBron James and Kevin Durant, Tatum’s skillset became a bit of a redundancy and he found himself on the outside looking in during two of Team USA’s games.
The player that was not part of Steve Kerr’s rotation most games was a less controversial exclusion, as Tyrese Haliburton spent most of the Olympics as the hype man on the bench, making a few appearances but only playing 26 minutes across Team USA’s six games — with three DNPs. On a team loaded with offensive talent and shot creation, Haliburton’s best attributes were not needed as much, and Kerr opted to put stronger defenders into the rotation at the guard spots.
That proved to be the right choice, as Team USA managed to win the gold medal on Saturday in a thrilling game against France — backing up their sensational semifinal comeback against Serbia. Haliburton picked up his third DNP in the gold medal game, but he still collects the same hardware as everyone else. The Pacers All-Star is well aware of what his role on this team was, and he had some fun with it with the best social media post of anyone on the team after winning gold (which is a tall order on a squad with KD firing off heat on Twitter).
Every USA Basketball team needs guys willing to set aside their ego and embrace the role asked of them. It’s a team full of stars but you can’t have 12 guys playing their normal role and have it work together. For some, like Devin Booker, it’s about adapting a role while playing big minutes, working as a secondary piece and doing the little things and providing strong defense in order to keep everything going. For Haliburton, it was surrendering a place in the rotation in total on most nights, but still bringing his energy and embracing his place as Team USA’s official Vibes Guy. He did that and picked up a gold medal, even if it might feel like that school group project where you let everyone else do the work.