Jayson Tatum & Team USA Update

The former Blue Devil will see some familiar faces with the Olympic team

Not many guys can say they've won an NBA championship and Olympic gold in the same year but you may soon be able to add Duke product Jayson Tatum to that list.

Tatum is with Team USA as the preps for Paris. The reality of winning the NBA title continues to set in as at least two former NBA players assessing his performance and potential.

Reggie Miller, who was a brilliant sniper for the Indiana Pacers, thinks that Tatum’s potential is virtually unlimited and that he’s “just scratching the surface” of his potential.

Meanwhile, closer to Beantown, Cedric “Cornbread” Maxwell says he’s concerned that Tatum’s busy summer may hurt the odds of a Celtics repeat and he has a point: the playoffs, the Olympics, some exhibition games in Europe and a new baby on top of that means a busy time indeed.

Fortunately Boston is deep and talented. How deep?

Deep enough to kick off a controversy with the Olympic team.

After Kawhi Leonard was sent home because of his knee problems, many people thought that Jaylen Brown would get the nod. But it went to fellow Celtic Derrick White instead, which irritated a lot of people.

He makes perfect sense though.

The national team has plenty of stars, even without Leonard. What it needs are role players who bring versatility and White certainly does that. An outstanding defender, White always does what his team needs to win. At 6-4, he can guard at least three positions and possibly four against Olympic teams which are not likely to be as tall (or as talented) as NBA teams. He’s likely to be invaluable.

And importantly, as we saw with Boston during the playoffs, he doesn’t have a huge ego. We’ve already seen Anthony Edwards boorishly argue that “everything goes through me,” and while he’s talented enough to make the argument, it’s not helpful. You don’t need too much of that. So all things considered, White looks like a great fit for this roster

Incidentally, though possibly accidentally, Grant Hill and his Team USA aides have emulated Dean Smith’s brilliant solution for putting together a solid Olympic team. In 1976, after the disgraceful ending of the US-USSR basketball game in the Olympic finals, winning was paramount but not easy, given that Smith only had a few short weeks to form his group of college All-Stars into a team.

So he took four of his own.

Mitch Kupchak, Phil Ford, Walter Davis and Tommy LaGarde all knew Smith’s system and they could help teach it to the other members of the team.

It’s not quite the same with Steve Kerr and three Celtics (Jrue Holiday is also on the team), but it does give the team a solid core it can rely on, and a core that knows each other well.