LILLE, France — When the US men’s basketball team’s Olympic group-play game against South Sudan tipped off late Wednesday night, Jayson Tatum walked onto the court just as he has for every game of his Celtics career.
But this time it felt notable.
On Sunday, coach Steve Kerr created a stir when he elected not to play Tatum during the Americans’ opener against Serbia. Kerr said afterward he mostly wanted to get Kevin Durant involved after he missed three weeks with a calf strain. He also pointed out Olympics games are just 40 minutes long and there are 12 elite players on the roster, so there is usually going to be at least one player left on the bench.
Nevertheless, it was unusual for a player with Tatum’s credentials to log a “DNP-coach’s decision.” When Tatum came out for halftime of that game, he did not even warm up. He walked through the media zone afterward without doing an interview.
When cameras panned to him sitting on the bench in the second half, staring straight ahead and rapidly chewing on a piece of gum, he appeared at the very least uneasy about the predicament, and maybe annoyed by it.
The storyline swelled so much that the next day Kerr declared that Tatum would play against South Sudan.
But Tatum didn’t let it fester. Celtics teammate Derrick White said when the two went out to dinner between the games, Tatum didn’t even mention the situation.
Then on Wednesday night he was in the starting lineup for Team USA’s 103-86 win over South Sudan that clinched a berth in the Olympic quarterfinals.
“The competitor in you wants to play, obviously,” Tatum said. “But I’m not here to make a story or make it about myself. We won. I was glad to just get back out there and play again, because there was a lot of chatter over the last few days. But I was in good spirits. I had a good attitude about it. It was fine. As a competitor you want to play, but I’m not holding any grudges or anything.”
It was not a vintage performance. The All-Star forward’s first shot, a 3-pointer, caromed off the side of the backboard, causing the raucous crowd at Pierre Mauroy Stadium to groan. He finished with 4 points, 5 rebounds, and 2 assists in just over 17 minutes of playing time.
When the fourth quarter began and South Sudan was lingering, Kerr inserted Durant to join the other four starters, in place of Tatum. But he said afterward that he will continue to search for combinations that will give this superteam the best chance to win the gold medal next week.
He also made it clear that his changes Wednesday had nothing to do with massaging egos, and everything to do with the matchup. Just 11 days earlier, this upstart South Sudan squad nearly pulled off one of the biggest upsets in international basketball history before the United States clawed back from a 16-point deficit to eke out a 1-point win during an exhibition in London.
Kerr said South Sudan is the fastest team in the tournament, and he wanted a versatile lineup to help subdue it.
“The whole game was really about switching, staying in front of people, not letting them break us down,” Kerr said. “So we just went with a change in the lineup. That’s how we’re going to do this. Whatever we need to do to win each game, that’s what we’re going to do. So for this game it just felt like that was the lineup that made the most sense.”
Those minutes have to come from somewhere, however. In this case, former NBA MVP Joel Embiid was the odd man out, the only US player who did not appear in the game. Kerr said that in the US team’s group-play finale against Puerto Rico on Saturday, Embiid would be back in the starting lineup. But the rotation choices during the elimination rounds figure to be the most intriguing.
Tatum on Wednesday called his benching “a humbling experience,” particularly in the afterglow of the Celtics championship that was followed by him signing the richest contract in NBA history and appearing on the cover of the popular NBA2K25 video game.
“There’s a lot you can take from it,” he said. “You can be frustrated that you want to play as a competitor, but maybe have some empathy for some guys on my [Celtics] team that don’t always get to play, or play spot minutes. So, learning experience to see it from that point of view, and just move on from it.”
Tatum said that he will expect the unexpected over the rest of this tournament.
“You never know when you’re going to be out there,” he said. “But the most important thing is that you win. That’s all that matters.”
Adam Himmelsbach can be reached at adam.himmelsbach@globe.com. Follow him @adamhimmelsbach.