Bob Cousy: “Tatum is on the cover of Sports Illustrated this month, and any expert that I’ve read lately has chosen him in the top 5, and sometimes no. 1 in the [expletive] world. Now Kerr is telling the world he doesn’t agree. In a 40-minute game he can’t find five minutes to play somebody on a 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. Not playing Tatum at all says to the world that not only is he not top 5, he’s not good enough to get into a close game. I can’t quite figure out Kerr’s thinking. He’s done it twice, so he obviously feels strongly about it. He must think Tatum is a detriment. I don’t see how he can feel that way and know anything about basketball.”
Doug Gottlieb: “Bob Cousy, top rope! I love Bob Cousy but he’s an angry Bostonian. I will defend Bob Cousy playing against plumbers until the day I die. There’s a little bit of truth to what he’s saying in that there’s a world where Jayson Tatum is a detriment...STOP LOOKING AT INTERNATIONAL BASKETBALL THROUGH THE LENS OF THE NBA! IT IS NOT CLOSE TO THE SAME! It looks the same, feels the same, but it’s not the same. It’s officiated far differently. As a player who has played overseas, it takes you an entire season to feel in any way comfortable.
And by the way, no one thinks Jayson Tatum is a top five player in the world. Being First-Team All-NBA does not mean you’re a top 5 player in the world. He’s not in the solar system of Luka Doncic. Jayson Tatum doesn’t make others better. Tatum is a great scoring wing. He scores but is he better in international competition? Is he as efficient? Is he as dependable as Kevin Durant? NO. NO ONE THINKS THAT!
Who would you rather choose? Kevin Durant – who's 35 years old, won an MVP, won a couple MVP Finals, and actually produced in those Finals, as opposed to Jayson Tatum who was TERRIBLE in both NBA Finals. I think Tatum is really good but we’re looking at it through the prism of the NBA. Why are we doing that??
In the NBA, the five best players are not named Jayson Tatum. But just because you’re a top 5 or top 10 player does not mean in any way that we should view the Olympics through the prism of the NBA. It’s a different game, dude. It was a grown-man game and he’s not a grown man in comparison to those other dudes.”
Listen to Doug Gottlieb, filling in for Colin Cowherd on Fox Sports Radio’s The Herd, discuss the scathing recent comments former Boston Celtics legend Bob Cousy had for Team USA coach Steve Kerr, as Cousy went in hard on Kerr for greatly limiting Jayson Tatum’s minutes at the Olympics and effectively turning the First-Team All-NBA player into a glorified benchwarmer.
Check out the segment above as Gottlieb pushes back at Cousy’s digs of Kerr, saying Olympic basketball is a vastly different game than the NBA, and says Tatum was not prepared for a ‘grown man’s game’ against Serbia.
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