Draymond Green believes Steve Kerr stopped Kevin Durant’s ‘passing the torch’ moment to Jayson Tatum at Paris Olympics

Golden State Warriors star Draymond Green is one of the names who criticized Steve Kerr for benching Jayson Tatum.

Draymond Green believes Steve Kerr stopped Kevin Durant’s ‘passing the torch’ moment to Jayson Tatum at Paris Olympics

Jayson Tatum, Draymond Green (Images via NBA)

Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum is certainly one of the best young stars in the current NBA. He helped the Celtics capture their 18th championship, the most of any team in the NBA. Even though he didn’t receive the Finals MVP trophy, Tatum was undeniably one of the main pillars of the Celtics’ championship run. Currently, he is a part of the stacked Team USA for the 2024 Paris Olympics.

USA played their first game of the group stage against Serbia. During the game, Jayson Tatum was benched for the entire match and received zero playing minutes. Afterward, USA head coach Steve Kerr admitted that he felt like an idiot for keeping Tatum on the bench. Many fans and even NBA superstars have voiced strong opinions against Kerr for his decision to bench Tatum during the game.

Golden State Warriors star Draymond Green was also one of the superstars who criticized Kerr for his decision. On his podcast, Green stated that according to him the players that were going to be benched were Tyrese Haliburton and Derrick White.

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So when you're going into that game, my thought process was, if you're not going to play two guys, the two guys you're probably not going to play is Tyrese and Derrick White. And in 2021, our team, our offense was built around Jayson Tatum and Kevin Durant. And it was almost kind of set up as though like KD was passing the torch to JT and then JT come out and not play. I couldn't believe that.
Draymond Green via The Draymond Green Show

Draymond stated that Tatum is one of the most essential units for the team. Green also mentioned the 2021 campaign when Team USA’s offense was centered around Tatum and Kevin Durant.

Green even felt that it would be a moment for Durant to finally pass the torch to Tatum. However, Tatum didn’t play for Team USA in the season opener. Green was left unconvinced by the decision and even criticized his own Warriors head coach. Tatum will certainly be one of the team’s most important assets and has just entered his basketball prime.

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Steve Kerr ‘felt like an idiot’ after giving Jayson Tatum ZERO minutes against Serbia at Paris Olympics
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NBA analyst cites reason why Tatum is not top 5 player in the league

Jayson Tatum has proven to be one of the brightest stars in the NBA. He finally won his first championship with the Boston Celtics. Tatum faced a lot of criticism throughout his career for constant playoff failures, but he has finally managed to put an end to it all for now.

Recently, NBA analyst Jason Timpf made some bold statements, claiming that Tatum doesn’t belong among the elite Top 5 players in the NBA. To back up his point, Timpf argued that Tatum isn’t as good of an offensive player as fans claim him to be.

In my opinion, he is not one of the top five players in the NBA. He's not a good enough offensive engine in the half court to be that.
Jason Timpf via NBA Mailbag
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The Celtics forward has certainly improved his play and is great on both ends of the court. Tatum still has many years ahead of him, but his first championship has definitely brought him some relief from the criticism.

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