The United States men’s basketball team did bench a center in Wednesday’s game against South Sudan. It just wasn’t the one Brian Windhorst expected.
The ESPN reporter addressed Team USA head coach Steve Kerr’s rotation dilemma during an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show earlier this week. Kerr benched Jayson Tatum for the U.S. team’s opening group round match against Serbia on Sunday.
In the process, Windhorst said that the rotations for Team USA will keep changing and that with Tatum playing against South Sudan on Wednesday, one of the team’s centers would probably be on the outside looking in.
“South Sudan’s got a bunch of athletic wing players,” Windhorst said. “Tatum’s gonna be out there. They’re gonna be switching all of those screens because they gotta play the perimeter, and there may be a guy like Bam Adebayo that gets benched.”
Team USA would bench a center, as Windhorst correctly predicted. Joel Embiid was the one that was removed off the U.S. roster on Wednesday, not Adebayo. After contributing eighteen points and grabbing seven rebounds in Team USA’s 103-86 triumph, the Miami Heat star took to X. He shared a graphic of 50 Cent looking perplexed along with a clip of Windhorst’s earlier commentary.
To be fair, Windhorst only raised the prospect of Adebayo being benched rather than really predicting it. And even though he didn’t pick the right guy, Embiid’s benching eventually showed that his judgment was mostly accurate.
Taking everything into account, it was reasonable to propose that Adebayo might have been benched against South Sudan. The possibility of Adebayo missing a game was not out of the question if Kerr was prepared to bench Tatum and Embiid.
Adebayo clearly didn’t see it that way, even though it makes sense considering that he was a three-time All-Star and was chosen for the All-Defensive Team each season. He’s not the only member of Team USA to visit Windhorst recently; the ESPN reporter mentioned that Kevin Durant wasn’t happy with his reporting of the 2014 MVP’s attempt to recover from a calf injury before the start of group stage play.
That’s the life of an NBA insider: you travel over 4,400 miles, often dealing with lost luggage, and some of the top names in the league doubt your reporting. Regardless of the sport, Windhorst has established himself as one of ESPN’s best correspondents by this point. And it’s okay if his distinct blend of well-informed perspective enrages the subjects he covers.
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