20 years of The Dream Team

The 2012 London Olympics are about to start and there's a lot of excitement about it in the past days. There is one topic that has been particularly popular and it's the 20 year anniversary of ... yes ... you guessed it: The Dream Team. I for one can summarize it on one sentence:

The Best F@#$ing Team of All Time, in ANY sport.

As a 9 year old teenager, I had seen the USA the lose the Gold Medal in Seoul 1988 and I have to say, it pissed me off. Before the 1988 Summer Olympics, I had watched all these historical documentaries of the Olympics and I had seen that of 1972 when the US lost to Russia in the finals, so I had really high hopes for the Korea event. Sadly, we lost, so as you can see I was very a resentful fan.

In 1992 I was studying abroad the US in Venezuela and my classmates kept making fun of me as the supposed "best basketball country" had to settle with the Bronze medal in 88. My defense was strong, always stating how unfair it was that the US Pro players from the NBA weren't allowed to play. I vowed and I promised to my friends that if the US would ensemble a team with NBA players, we would kick so much ass so badly that the Earth's core would feel it.

I don't remember the exact day, but man, the day CAME. I don't remember how or when it was announced, but I do remember the beautiful sentence "US Professional Players from the NBA will be playing in the Olympics". Man... I was a virgin back then and I felt like it was like losing my virginity. I made bets all over the school giving ridiculous odds to my buddies. I honestly don't know how they took the bets, but I was certain to cash a lot of money.

The line-up, everyone should know by now: Bird, Drexler, Pippen, Ewing, Malone, Stockton, Barkley, Robinson, Mullin, Magic Johnson, Chris Laettner (perhaps the luckiest guy on Earth in 1992), and of course God himself... I mean, Michael Jordan -which is basically the same right?-. This was -with the exception of Isaiah Thomas, absent due to his poor relationships with the players, and Hakeem Olajuwon, absent because he wasn't an American citizen, - the BEST team that could have been together of NBA players.

There was no weak point, no aquilles tendon, no nothing nowhere. Yes Bird had back problems and Laettner was just there for being in college, but those were tiny, minimal objections in what was a flawless squad. Literally, the best guy on his best position was there, and arguably, the best guy in his best position of all time.

What I liked about the Dream Team is that they crushed their opponents, but still had the courtesy of crushing them with class. What does this mean? It means that I believe they still could have defeated their foes by larger margins and more definite and outstanding performances, yet they didn't. I don't remember a player having more than 4 fouls in a game, let alone sent off. They played clean and efficiently. They pounded everyone, but it was beautiful. You can conclude this by just picking up the little details:

While everyone was expecting Jordan or Johnson to be the top scorers, for some strange situation, Charles Barkley ended up being the top scorer of the team. He averaged 18 points per game. Barkley also had the highest Field Goal % with .711, and no one else coming even close to that amount.

Even weirder was that Laettner ended up with the highest Free Throw %, with .900.

Chris Mullin, who was known as the best 3 point shooter in the NBA at the time, ended with the highest amount of 3 point shots converted: 14 out of 26. That was to be expected. But in the 3 point % though he was second, after Barkley! who scored 7 out of 8.

Michael Jordan's performance cannot be criticized by any means, but objectively speaking, you can tell he was more focused on playing golf with Chuck Daly, and that he played more cooperatively than what he was used to in the Bulls. His Field Goal % was .451 -which was the lowest he had in his "sabatical year" in 1995.

Michael also scored 14.9 PPG. His 3 pointer average was .211. Also tied with his all time career lowest.

The bottom line was... who the f&#k cared? In a team where John Stockton and Chris Mullin were in the bench, you didn't need to rise your game up. And anyway, this was a TEAM. Everony contributed.

The Dream Team reconquered the gold medal and left a legacy that never EVER will be matched. Yes, you couldn't have Kareem Abdul Jabbar or Wilt Chamberlain, or Dr. J, but you can't just have everything in life.

However, in 1992 everyone in the world had the everything they wanted. The best team of all time assembled in any sport.








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