🪑 No play for Jay

Good Morning, Boston

🇺🇸 That was a fun Olympics. GOATs galore. Local heroes. Races that had me shouting at the TV in the bar. These games had a little of everything. Oh yeah, and the U.S. won the tiebreaker with China for most gold medals.

What’s on tap today:

• Harvard’s speed queen wins again

• Red Sox reinforcements?

• Curry cooks a golden meal

Let’s get into it…

LEADING OFF

Tatum’s tough time in Paris

We did see Jayson Tatum in the gold medal game... Even if it was only for 11 minutes. The Celtics’ All-NBA star logged three rebounds and a breakaway dunk after not playing against Serbia for the second time in six Olympic games. So he can say he contributed something to the gold-medal group project.

…But Tatum’s Olympic experience still raises questions. No one, especially not Tatum, expected these Olympics to go this way. This six-game stretch should’ve cemented his status as the new face of the NBA. Instead, he watched as Celtics teammates Jrue Holiday and Derrick White got more minutes than him for…matchup reasons? You’d think a guy who finished top-10 in points, rebounds, and assists per game could work in any lineup.

Tatum could’ve played better. We’d be remiss if we didn’t note Tatum wasn’t exactly dominating in his limited Olympic time. He was by far the least efficient scorer on Team USA and notably missed all 16 of his jump-shot attempts in Olympic play. (That’s even worse than me in pickup basketball this Saturday.) Still, even without his trademark ability to score from everywhere on the court, he’s shown he can be a threat on drives to the basket, as a passer, and as an excellent defender and rebounder.

What does the mean for Tatum’s stature? The storylines since that first benching against Serbia have taken over sports talk shows and basketball Twitter: how can a man universally viewed as one of the league’s best players get stiffed like this? Was it about Tatum’s struggles or his fit with the other players on the team? Could it be a product of Celtics “hate” following their championship win? If Tatum couldn’t hack it with the NBA’s biggest stars on a global scale, have we overrated how good he is? Somehow, winning a second gold medal with USA Basketball has only created more questions about Tatum’s resume.

The Celtics may reap the benefits of these Olympics. Pundits openly questioned whether or not the Celtics’ championship defense might suffer due to the strife around Jaylen Brown’s snub. But what if the opposite were true? Boston might now have two superstars motivated to wreck the league this upcoming season and cement their status among the NBA’s best. Combine that with almost exactly the same championship squad as last year, and the NBA might be in huge trouble.

BOSTON SPORTS

Quick Hits & Headlines

🥇 Gabby Thomas: Co-Queen of the Track. No one’s dethroning the great Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. But Florence, MA native and Harvard grad had an incredible Olympic Games in her own right, winning gold in the 200-meter dash and the 4×100 and 4×400-meter relays. (She and McLaughlin-Levrone teamed up to help the U.S. dominate the last one.) Three years after picking up bronze and silver medals in the Toyko Games, Thomas has officially put herself up there with McLaughlin-Levrone and Sha’Carri Richardson as the faces of women’s track and field.

🏈 Drake Maye gets shown up by fellow rookies. To be fair, Maye’s situation is different than Caleb Williams and Jayden Daniels, the top two picks in the 2024 NFL Draft. Maye didn’t come into training camp as the unquestioned starting quarterback; Williams and Daniels did. Still, watching the latter two light it up in the preseason debuts while Maye got just one series of action in his opener has to frustrate Patriots fans. Hopefully, Jerod Mayo is serious about giving his rookie quarterback more burn against the Eagles this week.

🏥 Help is on the way for the Red Sox. The Sox have been so resilient that people probably forgot two key members of their lineup, Triston Casas and Trevor Story, have barely played this year. But Manager Alex Cora said Casas, who has been rehabbing a rib injury with the Worcester Red Sox since late July, could return in short order. Story is more of a long shot, but Cora sounds hopeful his shortstop’s surgically repaired shoulder will give him a chance to suit up in 2024. If only one of them could pitch.

BEYOND BOSTON

Out-of-Town Report

Jordan Chiles deserves better than this. It’s bad enough that Chiles had to submit an injury to get her floor exercise correctly scored just to earn her bronze medal. Now, the Court of Arbitration for Sport is trying to take it away because of a technicality — not because Chiles didn’t perform well enough to win. Let’s cross our fingers that USA Gymnastics’ latest appeal will work.

USA Basketball rules the world. It certainly wasn’t easy for the men or women, but the two most talented teams in the world got it done. We’ll all remember this LeBron James-Steph Curry-Kevin Durant trio forever. As for the women’s side: can we celebrate the women who won in this Olympics before immediately jumping back to Caitlin Clark talk?

Mac Jones is fighting for a job. The former Patriots quarterback’s preseason debut went pretty well numbers-wise. The problem: Jones is currently third on the quarterback depth chart behind starter Trevor Lawrence and veteran backup CJ Beathard. What a long way we are from that 2021 rookie season when it looked like the Patriots had a quarterback again.

TOP PLAYS

The Best Thing I Saw in Sports

“This devil named Curry is hurting us!” That Steph Curry “golden dagger” might be the most diabolical shot in FIBA history. No wonder it unhinged the French broadcasters.

This Sha’Carri Richardson staredown is iconic. If I send this to you, I’m telling you you’re not on my level.

Ceddanne Rafaela steals another hit. I actually saw this one in person.

ON THIS DAY

AUGUST 12, 1969

CELTICS SOLD FOR RECORD PRICE

1969 marked the end of an era in Boston. After Bill Russell retired following consecutive championships as a player-coach in 1968 and 1969, the team was sold from P. Ballentine and Sons Brewing Company to Trans-National Communications for a then-record $6 million. Forbes now estimates the Celtics’ value at nearly $5 billion as the team prepares for another sale.

That’s a wrap🗞 I’m going back to hoping Steph Curry and the Warriors lose in the play-in round again.

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