Olympic basketball teams are packed with superstars, but there will be some standouts among them, like Jayson Tatum and Tyrese Haliburton on the U.S. team.
His lack of playing time was quite surprising considering it had only been two months since Tatum won the NBA Finals with the Boston Celtics and signed the richest contract in NBA history.
Not so with Haliburton. On a team with LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry and Joel Embiid, and limited rotations down the stretch, Haliburton just didn’t have a place on the court.
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American player Tyrese Haliburton warms up during the quarterfinal match between the United States and Brazil on day 11 of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the Bercy Arena on August 6, 2024 in Paris. (Marvin Ibo Gengoa – GES Sportfoto/Getty Images)
But he still has “Olympic gold medalist” written on his resume, despite playing just 8.8 minutes per game in the three games he appeared in.
Haliburton has been the butt of jokes about his playing time during the Olympics, but he didn’t shy away from criticizing himself over the weekend.
After receiving his gold medal, Halliburton took a selfie with it and posted it to X for a laugh among his followers.
“When you get an A on a group project even though you didn’t do anything,” he wrote, along with a gold medal emoji.
Tyrese Haliburton of the U.S. men’s national team posed for a portrait with his gold medal at a hotel in Paris on August 10, 2024. (Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE via Getty Images)
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The USA narrowly beat Nikola Jokic and Serbia in the semifinals, then had a close game against hosts France in the gold medal match, but Stephen Curry played like Stephen Curry to win his fourth gold medal for the USA.
Haliburton now turns his attention to the Indiana Pacers, who lost to the Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals.
USA players Anthony Edwards (number 5), Jrue Holiday (number 12), Tyrese Haliburton (number 9) and Anthony Davis (number 14) celebrate from the bench during the men’s basketball semifinal match between Team USA and Team Serbia on day 13 of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the Bercy Arena in Paris on August 8, 2024. (Sarah Steer/Getty Images)
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He averaged 20.1 points and a career-high and NBA-leading 10.9 assists per game last season.
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