Jayson Tatum spoke with the media in Las Vegas to discuss being a part of Team USA, and the chance to play with Joel Embiid and other top players in the NBA.
To the victors go the spoils, so it would be within the rights of Jayson Tatum, Jrue Holiday and Derrick White to remind their Team USA brethren as often as possible that their Boston Celtics are NBA champions.
But it sounds like the defending champs are (somewhat) restraining themselves.
During a press conference Thursday ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics, Team USA's Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry were asked if Tatum, Holiday and White -- the three Celtics on the U.S. roster -- have been taking a victory lap after beating the Dallas Mavericks in the 2024 NBA Finals.
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"Not at all," Durant replied with a smile.
"That would be wild if Jayson every time he walked in was just like 'The champ is here!'" Curry added. "That would be wild behavior."
Durant and Curry might be engaging in some selective listening; a mic'd up video from earlier this month captured Holiday repeatedly calling Tatum "champ" during a Team USA practice, while Tatum has used the term often this summer as well.
But Durant, who won a pair of NBA championships with Curry's Golden State Warriors in 2017 and 2018, has a reminder for the Celtics trio.
"We've got champs on the team; they're just the most recent ones," Durant said.
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Team USA indeed is loaded with generational talents like Durant, Curry, LeBron James, Anthony Davis and Joel Embiid. But Tatum and Holiday have fit in seamlessly on this squad during exhibition play, while White is working up to speed after replacing the injured Kawhi Leonard.
"You can see their chemistry pretty easily," Durant added of the Celtics trio. "They respect the game, so they're not coming in bragging or anything like that. But you respect what they've done."
The Celtics are the only NBA team with three players on the U.S. Olympic squad, and the only team outside the Los Angeles Lakers (James and Davis) with more than one. That's a reflection of their impressive collection of unselfish superstars, which rolled to one of best seasons in recent memory en route to Banner 18.