'I'm glad he got to actually rest and chill': Kevin Garnett didn't mind seeing Jayson Tatum get little playing time in Olympics

Steve Kerr’s decision to not play Jayson Tatum in two of the United States wins in the Olympics caused a bit of an uproar, with several former Celtics stars criticizing the coach.

Kevin Garnett, however, has a different take on the matter. The Basketball Hall of Famer believes that it’s a good thing that Tatum didn’t get as much run as expected in the Olympics it allowed him to get a bit of rest after winning an NBA title.

“One of the harder years that I had personally was when you play in the Olympics,” Garnett said in an episode of his podcast, “KG Certified.” “Not only that, but Jayson Tatum has won the NBA Championship in the Olympic year, which is probably the most difficult to do, right? Not only does Jayson not have a summer of relaxing, rejuvenating himself, and getting ready for another year, but you’ve got to lock in when you [play] for Team USA. It’s serious business.”

Even though Tatum is only 26, he’s logged a lot of minutes already in his NBA career due to his durability and Boston’s deep playoff runs. He led the Celtics in total minutes this past season, logging 2,645 minutes in the regular season (16th-most in the NBA) and 768 in the postseason. As of March, he had played 1,455 minutes more than anyone else in the NBA since he was drafted in 2017, according to Boston Sports Info.

Garnett can somewhat relate to Tatum in that regard. He played all but 11 regular-season games in his first five seasons in the league (averaging 36.9 minutes per game) before playing for USA Basketball in the 2000 Summer Olympics. The Sydney Games were also played in September of that year, giving the players on that team less time to rest between the end of the Olympics and the start of the NBA season.

Garnett ended up having a fine year following the Olympics, finishing fifth in MVP voting in the 2000-01 season. But unlike Tatum, Garnett wasn’t coming off a title run, getting eliminated in the first round of the playoffs in the season prior.

Still, Garnett has somewhat of an idea of how fatigued Tatum might be after a long year of basketball.

“It was great that he didn’t have to play a lot of minutes,” Garnett said. “He’s coming off the Finals. I know [Derrick White] and [Jrue] Holiday were there, but to play big minutes [for] the USA, I’m glad they didn’t need Jayson Tatum. I’m glad he got to actually rest and chill.”

With Tatum coming off a title run, Garnett speculated that the Celtics star might have had a dialogue with USA Basketball about having a lesser load with the team.

“When he was getting these DNPs, I bet you that there was a conversation with him and Grant Hill or with management about coming on the team and being able to rest,” Garnett said. “When you win, you get a shortened [offseason]. Everybody else gets four, five months off and you probably get two, 2.5? And then it’s right back in the lab.”

Tatum had an excused tardiness to the team’s camp in Las Vegas in early July, arriving a couple of days late for an undisclosed reason. But he seemed a bit surprised by not playing in the two games against Serbia and logging the second-fewest minutes on the team during the Olympics.

“It was a tough personal experience on the court, but I’m not going to make any decision off emotions,” Tatum told reporters following Team USA’s win over France in the gold medal game if he’d return to the team for the 2028 Olympics. “If you asked me right now if I was going to play in 2028 – it is four years from now and I [would have] to take time and think about that. So I’m not going to make any decision based off how this experience was or how I felt individually.”

Regardless, Tatum’s summer marked just the 10th time that a player has won an NBA title and an Olympic gold medal in the same year (with Holiday and White accounting for two of those occasions). So far, only Michael Jordan (1992-93), Scottie Pippen (1992-93, 1996-97), and LeBron James (2012-13) were the only players to repeat as NBA champions in the following year.

As Tatum, Holiday, and White look to join that company, Garnett is happy that the Celtics’ top star got to save some miles. He also liked how Tatum approached the situation, too.

“I can only imagine how difficult that was for him,” Garnett said. “But shout out to JT, man. I don’t think you heard him bickering. I didn’t hear any echoes about him being unhappy or anything like that. I just think he was trying to get through it and micromanage it.”