Tatum describes his mindset after ‘challenging’ Olympic bench sit

Jayson Tatum has been a star player at every level of basketball throughout his career.

He was an elite high school player. He was one of the best players in college basketball during his one season at Duke. And now he’s an NBA champion for the Boston Celtics.

Not getting much playing time wasn’t a problem for him, so it wasn’t customary for him to sit on the bench for Team USA at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

The conversation and debate about Tatum not playing Serbia in both the group stage and the semi-finals of the Olympic tournament was quite loud. It was one of the most talked about storylines of the men’s basketball tournament in France.

What was it like not participating in certain competitions and all the attention that came with it?

“It was a lot. In the age of social media, you see everything,” Tatum recently told Jared Weiss of The Athletic. “You see all the tweets and the people on the podcasts and the people on TV giving their opinions on whether they thought it was a good decision or an outrageous decision or whatever.

“Of course I wanted to contribute more, and I’ve never been in (this) situation before. I started playing basketball when I was (3 years old) at the YMCA, and I’ve never not played, so it was different and challenging.”

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Tatum didn’t let outside noise affect his preparation, and ultimately, he and Team USA achieved the ultimate goal: winning a gold medal. Tatum played 11 minutes in the gold medal game against France, which the United States won 98-87. The Celtics star now has two Olympic gold medals after winning his first three years ago in Tokyo.

“I didn’t sulk. I didn’t have an attitude. I wasn’t mad at the world,” Tatum told Weiss. “I just stood up and did what was asked of me and I won a gold medal, right?”

Overall, it’s been a fantastic year for Tatum. And with the Olympics behind him, he can now focus on the challenge the Celtics face next season: winning the NBA championship. No team has done that since the Golden State Warriors six years ago.

“I have two (gold medals), I have a championship, and not everything necessarily goes the way you expect, right?” Tatum said, per Weiss. “I’ve learned to say, ‘Okay, that’s part of it.’ You move on, and I’m just getting ready to enjoy the last little weeks that I have before the season starts and get ready for a new season.”