What Jayson Tatum said about Jaylen Brown’s Team USA snub

Jayson Tatum spent most of Wednesday’s exhibition game between Team USA and Canada slipping past Shai Gilgeous-Alexander on the hardwood.

And on Thursday morning, the Celtics star spent some of his media availability in Las Vegas dodging questions regarding his Boston teammate, Jaylen Brown, and his perceived snub of a roster spot on Team USA.

“Ah, no,” Tatum told reporters, per NBC Sports Boston, of if he’s talked with Brown since he was not added to Team USA’s roster. 

Tatum is in a precarious spot, considering that Brown’s potential spot on Team USA was eventually handed to a fellow teammate in Derrick White. 

“I mean, there’s so many guys that could take that last spot or whatever. Yeah, it is,” Tatum added when asked if it was tough to see Brown not make the U.S. Team. 

Brown, coming off of both Eastern Conference Finals MVP and NBA Finals honors this postseason with Boston, was a somewhat surprising omission from Team USA’s initial roster announcement for the upcoming 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. 

After Clippers forward Kawhi Leonard was ruled out of participating in the Olympics on Wednesday, Team USA selected White as Leonard’s replacement — over a player with admittedly a higher star ceiling in Brown. 

Speaking on Wednesday, USA basketball managing director Grant Hill said that the team choosing White over Brown was a matter of finding the right fit for an open roster spot, rather than an indictment on Brown’s reputation in the league. 

“This is about putting together a team,” Hill explained. “Just kind of overall, you have incredible interest from an abundance of talent that we have here in the United States. I’ve talked a little about when we assembled this roster. You have 12 spots; you have to build a team. One of the hardest things is leaving people off the roster that I’m a fan of, that I look forward to watching throughout the season, throughout the playoffs.”

“Guys who have been Finals MVPs,” Hill added. “Guys who have been part of the program. Guys who have won gold medals. Guys who I respect, admire and enjoy watching. But the responsibility that I have is to put together a team, and a team that complements each other, a team that fits, a team that will give us the best opportunity for success. Whatever theories that might be out there, they’re just that.”

Brown has not held back since missing out on his latest shot to make Team USA, taking to social media on multiple occasions over the last few days and seemingly insinuating that Nike might have played a role in his omission from the 2024 Olympics.