According to Doug Gottlieb, the reaction to Steve Kerr benching Jayson Tatum in the opening game of the 2024 Paris Olympics is that of an AAU dad. The Green Bay Phoenix head coach, who is still very much a sports media personality, took aim at those who criticized the Golden State Warriors head coach, particularly ESPN’s Kendrick Perkins and Stephen A. Smith.
Gottlieb called the insinuation that Kerr “disrespected” Tatum “f*cking ridiculous,” directly responding to Perkins’ complaints.
He then went on a tangent on social media about Smith, calling the First Take host, whom he long harbors a feud against, “a scrub.”
Well, Stephen A was a scrub so maybe he would want to go in the last 5 min… but at this level, you don’t put Tatum in at SAS time. I’ve actually coached FIBA hoops w/12 guys that can play, could only get 10 in real games… and scrub time would just piss everyone off
“Jamming a square peg into a round hole when you’ve evaluated that others are ahead of him only shows that if you play Jayson Tatum big minutes (Wednesday),” Gottlieb said, “You’re overcorrecting, and you’re giving into the pressure of social media. And the only people that really have an issue with it are guys with Boston by their name on social media. Anybody from Boston seems to be bothered by it, like NBC Sports Boston guys are just homers. It’s OK; it’s who they’re supposed to be.
“And people who view things from the NBA prism of respect. ‘It’s about respect.’ No, it’s not. You’re trying to win a basketball game. The only thing that’s important is that you win a game. The second that it becomes about something else is the second that you’ve lost your team; you’re not coaching it anymore. But if he bends over backward and plays Jayson Tatum way too much (Wednesday), he’s not just giving into all the social media pressure of the NBA, but it will cause far more problems.
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