The Boston Celtics continue to stay nearly a month after winning their NBA-best 18th championship. The celebratory parade is over. The hype has died down.
The drama, however, continued with the July 11 addition of Celtics guard Derrick White to the USA National Men’s Basketball Team rather than his higher-profile teammate Jaylen Brown.
Dan Patrick suggested Brown is too good a player to sit on the bench of the star-studded national team.
“Jaylen Brown, to me, would probably be a little bit more disappointed or upset — I don’t want to say angry — if he’s not playing,” Patrick said on the July 11 episode of “The Dan Patrick Show.” “You’re on the roster. You’re on the bench, and I should be playing. OK, but when you’re not, because there’s a lot of star power here. I mean, you got LeBron, you got KD, you got Steph Curry.”
Dan Patrick: ‘You Got Egos Here’
White was selected after Kawhi Leonard, of the Los Angeles Clippers, dropped off the team, which already featured two Celtics stars, Jayson TatumJayson Tatum and Jrue Holiday.
“These are big-ticket items,” Patrick, the legendary former host of ESPN’s “SportsCenter,” said. “Anthony Edwards says he’s the No. 1 option here. You got egos here.”
Patrick intimated that Brown, as the NBA champs’ best player, doesn’t fit the bill as a role player.
“Sometimes you’ve got to get the guys who are the foot soldiers,” Patrick said. “It seems like every team has those or needs to have those. Sometimes when you see an All-Star team or a team full of stars lose, it’s because they haven’t been playing together.”
Brown avoided discussing getting passed over by Team USA when asked about it at the July 11 ESPY awards.
“I don’t really got no comment you know what I mean?” he said, according to The New York Post. A day earlier he tweeted a series of emojis believed to represent raised eyebrows at the Team USA decision.
Patrick Said He Understands the Derrick White Addition
Brown’s omission has been the talk around Boston. It’s become somewhat of a fiasco, with many digging deep and coming up with various reasons why Brown was passed over. Although Patrick said he doesn’t know if there was more to Brown’s not being chosen, he said he understood why the Olympic team would settle on White.
“I understand Derrick White,” Patrick said. “Derrick White is very versatile. Really good defender. He can shoot the three, doesn’t lack confidence, and plays hard. If you put him on the bench, and he doesn’t play, you’re probably not going to hear anything.
“If Jaylen Brown doesn’t play, how’s he going to react? Derrick White doesn’t play, we know how he’s going to react. He’ll be fine. He’s on the Olympic team, great experience,” Patrick said. “Jaylen Brown’s probably saying I’m up there in the conversation of best player in the world. I should be playing. I think that probably factored in.”
USA basketball managing director Grant Hill said it’s all about finding the right mix when trying to put together a team of All-Stars.
“This is about putting together a team,” Hill said. “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.
“One of the many things that I really love about Derrick, and particularly with this team, is I don’t feel like his role changes much with our team, from what he does with the Celtics. He plays alongside two incredibly great young players in Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum.”
Mike Thomas is a veteran sports reporter covering the NBA for Heavy.com, with a focus on the Boston Celtics. He previously worked as an NBA and NFL writer for Sportscasting and was the Sports Editor for The Herald News in Fall River, Massachusetts for 16 years. More about Mike Thomas
