ESPN NBA insider Brian Windhorst knows that the players he talks about on the air are listening, and sometimes they’ll let him know, to his face, what they think.
During the latest episode of The Hoop Collective, Windhorst shared that he was confronted by Miami Heat big man Bam Adebayo after comments he made about Team USA competing at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
As he tells it, the NBA insider said Adebayo’s minutes for Team USA should have gone to Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum instead. That didn’t sit well with the All-Star center.
“Tatum is obviously not playing. I was explaining on TV, ‘I don’t see how Tatum is going to play unless somebody else doesn’t play.’ And I was like, ‘Maybe Bam Adebayo [shouldn’t play],'” said Windhorst. “So I said that on American TV. And the next day, we were in Lille, France, and Bam was like, ‘Really? I’m not gonna play? I defend 1 through 5, bro.’
“I was like, ‘Hey, you’re right.’ And guess what, he played. Tatum didn’t.”
Tatum had been left off the Team USA roster, a move that many saw as a snub. However, others agreed that Adebayo, a five-time All-Defensive team selection, made more strategic sense on a roster that already had plenty of scorers. The U.S. went on to win the gold medal, defeating France 98-87 in the Olympic final.
About Sean Keeley
Along with writing for Awful Announcing and The Comeback, Sean is the Managing Editor for Comeback Media. Previously, he created the Syracuse blog Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician and wrote 'How To Grow An Orange: The Right Way to Brainwash Your Child Into Rooting for Syracuse.' He has also written non-Syracuse-related things for SB Nation, Curbed, and other outlets. He currently lives in Seattle where he is complaining about bagels. Send tips/comments/complaints to sean@thecomeback.com.