There are very few things regarding which all fans across the world can arrive at a consensus. When it comes to deciding which is the greatest basketball team of all time, there is no divisiveness. The answer is unanimous. The 1992 Dream Team represents the highest ideal of the sport, and there has never been a better team of basketball players assembled since.
These players didn't just represent the USA. They might as well have been the Space Jam team fighting for Planet Earth. Absolutely nobody could have foreseen the astronomical level of popularity these 12 men enjoyed. The Olympics almost became a sideshow in their wake. It wasn't just the fans, athletes from other disciplines were equally star struck by this unprecedented collection of hall of fame athletes.
Here are 6 fascinating and intriguing stories about the greatest basketball team ever assembled:
#1 The Dream Team Phenomenon
The Dream Team took the concept of celebrity to a whole new level. The players were individually superstars in their own right, but coming together as the most dominant team of all time raised their popularity to stratospheric levels. None of them could have predicted the meteoric rise of their reputations. As mentioned in Dream Team by Jack McCallum, Coach Chuck Daly said of the phenomenon. "It was like Elvis and the Beatles put together,"
The Dream Team was relentlessly mobbed everywhere they went.Brazil's phenomenal scorer Oscar Schmidt stated his goal for the tournament thusly, "I want all the American team's autographs if possible."
The Dream Team phenomenon manifested itself in a cornucopia of merchandises manifesting the likeness of the players. From branded cups to calendars to place mats, there was no end to the madness.
NBA security chief Horace Balmer later recalled that the Dream Team "were the most protected guys in Barcelona." at that time. Nobody was allowed to park a vehicle within two blocks of the Ambassador hotel where they stayed. There were such enthusiastic police officers on motorcycles as an escort for the Dream Team that Larry Bird told the officials that they would leave fifteen minutes early to travel safer.
"There's helicopters up there. This (thing) is serious," Balmer recalled.
#2 Lone defeat at hands of a college team
The fact that the greatest team of all time, the Dream Team of 1992, went undefeated in the Olympics is well known. What is often overlooked that they did suffer a loss in a scrimmage. It makes it all the more galling that their only loss was at the hands of a lowly college team.
Early in his career, Magic Johnson practically fired Lakers coach Paul Westhead by issuing an ultimatum: either he goes, or I go. Michael Jordan and coach Doug Collins had a contentious relationship between them. Charles Barkley meanwhile marched to the beat of a drum only audible to himself.
Coach Chuck Daly had the task of coaching them. He was the head coach of the Detroit Pistons of the Bad Boys Pistons era. A time when players were allowed to pummel the living daylights out of each other. How does he get players to buy into what he's selling when he's been responsible for innumerable body hits conducted on their person?
While it is a salivating prospect to assemble the greatest competitors of all time on one team, there is a flip side to that. What do you do when their competitive instincts turn on each other? How do you get such uber-competitive athletes to buy into your program? How do you get them to not loosen up in the face of inferior competition and risk a slip-up?
You orchestrate a losing match by sitting your best player and making no adjustments. Then, any time the team dissents, all you have to do is remind them that they got their behinds kicked by college kids.
Coach Daly masterminded the entire affair. In a practice match between the Dream Team and a college team, he sat Jordan out for most of the game and refused to make adjustments. The college team deserves its share of credit, they weren't slouches. Largely thanks to inspired play from their point guard Bob Hurley who was guarded by Magic., they were able to put pressure on the Dream Team through dribble penetration.
The college team won the match 88-80. Needless to say, there was a rematch where Jordan featured a bit more prominently. The final margin of victory was roughly 40 points.
#3 Greatest game no one ever saw
Before the footage of every layup found its way on YouTube, lost in VHS tapes remained the footage of The Greatest Game Noone Ever Saw. During a practice scrimmage in Monte Carlo, the battle of wills between Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan was firmly decided in a scrimmage.
There had been talks of a one on one contest between the two superstars in an All-Star Game, but the idea was shot down. This would perhaps be the closest they would come to enacting such a scenario: a scrimmage when Magic can forego his pass-first instincts and try to take on Jordan. That's a futile goal if there ever was one.
Here's how the Dream Team stacked up that day:
White team: Jordan, Karl Malone, Scottie Pippen, Patrick Ewing and Larry BirdBlue team: Magic, Charles Barkley, David Robinson, Chris Mullin and Christain Laettner
Jordan later recalled that Laettner was the weak link, and the team he was on usually lost. In this contest, though, it was Jordan's murderous instinct which powered his team to a win. It didn't hurt that Magic tried to do too much by himself.
Initially, Magic's team took a 7-0 lead. When Jordan got a call, Magic would yell, "They just moved Chicago Stadium to Monte Carlo." implying that the Bulls get preferential treatment at home. The lead ballooned to 16-7. Buoyed by the lead, Magic committed a cardinal sin: He yelled, "The Jordanaires are down". That was a derisive term applied to the Bulls, insinuating that it was all about Mike.
Ask anyone who has ever faced Michael Jordan, they will all tell you the same thing. You don't talk trash to him. You don't even want to look at him the wrong way, lest he interprets it as a perceived slight and goes off on you.
After Magic's slip up, the White team began its comeback. The lead shrunk to 20-13, then 20-17, then White took the lead 21-20. The final score was 40-36 in favour of White team. Jordan would not let Magic live it down. He could be heard singing "Be Like Mike" incessantly.
"Let me tell you something -- it would've been worse for everybody if he lost," said Magic. "Because I could let something go after a while. But Michael? He'd never let it go. He never let anything go."
Jordan still maintains that the scrimmage was the best game he played. He recalls, "It was the best game I was ever in. Because the gym was locked and it was just about basketball. You saw a lot about players' DNA, how much some guys want to win. Magic was mad about it for two days."
#4 Power struggles
Even among the legendary Hall of Famers, there were three players who stood head and shoulders above all else: Jordan, Magic and Bird. Larry Bird and Magic Johnson's historical rivalry had carried the league over the past decade from an era of relative obscurity to its booming popularity of that present day. They were over the hill, though, and the new Sheriff in town wasn't ready to bow down in reverence to them.
Coach Daly had approached Jordan to be co-captains with Magic and Bird, but he declined out of deference to them. He knew he would be the leader out on the court, and that's what mattered to him. Besides, he wanted time to have minimal off-court commitments to play golf.
Larry Bird recalled trying to explain to Magic that their time was running out and they ought to bow out gracefully, rather than trying to keep pace with the young Jordan. He'd argue that they had had their decade, and trying to hang on beyond their physical limitations was a losing proposition. Initially, Magic was hesitant. But he eventually shared, if not turned the reins over to Jordan.
In recent memory, the 2008 Olympics proved to be the deciding factor in cementing the alliance between LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. They were able to bond by that shared experience. Similarly, it was the 1992 Olympics which finally enabled Magic to cede control of the league in his mind to Jordan.
Another power struggle revolved around the exclusion of Pistons' point guard, Isiah Thomas. It's no secret that Thomas was immensely disliked by most of the Dream Team. The Pistons' style of committing borderline assault on the opponents during the course of the game had rubbed everyone the wrong way. "Rod, I don’t want to play if Isiah Thomas is on the team," said Michael Jordan to Rod Thorn, Team USA selection committee member. And that power struggle was decided.
#5 Sir Charles the ambassador
If you had to pick an Olympian from the Dream team to be the representative of the team, names like Jordan, Bird or Magic come to mind. Or perhaps the all-American hero David Robinson. If not them, John Stockton is another safe bet as an everyman sized guard who holds his own against giants.
Whoever you picked, you probably would have struck many names to get to Charles Barkley. The resident bad boy barely made it to the squad over concerns regarding his volatile persona. The very last thing David Stern needed was Barkley going off in Barcelona on his wild rampages.
Barkley had told an old lady in Boston, "Shut up you (female canine).” He had fallen into another controversy when he spat on a little eight-year-old girl Lauren Rose, he apparently intended to spit at a heckler. Later, he apologized profusely.
What he didn't apologize for was elbowing Herlander Coimbra of Angola in USA's first game at the Olympics. Barkley claimed that he was hit first. Before the game, he had said, “I don't know anything about Angola, but Angola's in trouble.”
Barkley ended up becoming the leading scorer for the Dream Team. He averaged 18 points per game through 8 games and was the most visible face around town. He refused to travel with a security escort or an entourage. He'd walk out of the hotel at random and give a few hundred bucks to a likely candidate for a bodyguard and tell him "You're my bodyguard for the night."
There may have been some resentment against Team USA for not staying at the Olympic Village and choosing a hotel instead. But they would have caused a riot by staying at the Village. Barkley's everyman antics endeared him to the locals and did well for the image of the team which was seen as too good to mingle with the rest.
#6 When Jordan and Pippen unleashed their full fury
Never has such an unsuspecting lamb been led to slaughter as Toni Kukoc at the 1992 Olympics. When Kukoc suited up to represent Croatia, he was blissfully unaware that the two Dobermen were licking their chops at the prospect of locking him down.
"I wanted the whole world to see us go face to face," Pippen said. "I would have ordered [Krause] a big-screen TV." he added.
If you are a professional basketball player in the 90s, the very last thing you want is Michael Jordan baying for your blood. Add to that Scottie Pippen frothing at the mouth to lock you down, and you are in for 4 quarters of hell. As the whistle blew to start the match, Kukoc was at the receiving end of the most tenacious and stifling defense possible at the hands of Jordan and Pippen.
The Bulls' players didn't enjoy the best relationship with the front office. Jerry Krause, in particular, rubbed the players the wrong way by insisting on traveling in the team bus, taking credit for the team's performance, and bizarrely occupying the team toilet before a game. He was nicknamed 'Crumbs' because he got food all over him while eating.
"I'm pretty sure Scottie will take the film and send it to Jerry, really quickly," Jordan said. "I'm sure somewhere, Jerry's watching."
Krause fancied himself a step away from unearthing the next big thing. He doted on Kukoc and was chasing him in a way which rubbed Jordan and Pippen the wrong way. Pippen felt that his contract situation was worsened by the Bulls' pursuit of Kukoc. Hence, the two superstars came into the Olympics looking to show the unsuspecting Kukoc a thing or two.
Bulls had drafted Kukoc in 1990, and Krause held off on re-negotiating Pippen's contract in order to sign Kukoc. Once it was apparent that he would spend more years playing abroad, Pippen's contract was re-negotiated. But the bitter taste lingered.
Later they recalled that they were probably playing against Krause as much as against Kukoc. Kukoc finished the game shooting 2-11 for just 4 points as the USA won 103-70.
