The US Dream Team assembled the greatest talent in sporting history — as well as some of the biggest egos
THE US Dream Team assembled the greatest talent in sporting history. It had the egos of a heavyweight title fight, the bickering of a daytime soap opera and the partying of the Rio Carnival.
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IT had the egos of a heavyweight title fight, the bickering of a daytime soap opera and the partying of the Rio Carnival.
The US Dream Team assembled the greatest collection of talent in sporting history to reclaim Olympic superiority from Russia.
Then in grand style they coasted through the 1992 Barcelona Olympics kicking butt and taking names.
And David Robinson had a window seat ride to a team that resembled basketball’s Harlem Globetrotters.
Except, of course, that everything they did was real.
The 51-year-old NBA Hall of Famer known as ‘The Admiral”, told News Corp all the fabled stories involved the greatest team that ever was actually happened.
They included partying and cards tournaments all night and golf all day, and Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen terrorising Croatian Toni Kukoc because he had signed for more than Pippen at Chicago.
That Dream Team trip also included the greatest game nobody ever saw, an intense scrimmage in a Monaco gym where Jordan and Magic Johnson verbally and physically went at each other.
An American team laden with virtuoso talent — Jordan, Johnson, Larry Bird, Karl Malone, Charles Barkley — would take home gold with an average winning margin of 43.8 points.
All of it came about because of an American team not allowed to play its NBA stars had been bounced from the 1988 Olympics to the Soviet Union and 1990 world championships to Yugoslavia.
“It was clear that international basketball was moving forward and as college guys we were playing against fully mature teams, so USA basketball was at a bit of a disadvantage,’’ he said.
“We wanted to re-establish our dominance and the NBA felt like it was ready and it seems like it was the best thing that could happen.
“Everyone wanted to be on that team. Everyone knew it was a special opportunity. Sometimes you get alpha dogs in the one room and everyone wants to pee on the tree.
“It wasn’t like that, guys wanted to compete but also enjoy the experience. Sometimes you play and people get angry or jealous but there was none of that.”
Not after the team was chosen, anyway, with FIBA having finally relaxed its rules in 1989 to allow the best of the best to play in the Olympics.
Jordan refused to play if Detroit Pistons bad boy Isiah Thomas was picked after a longstanding rivalry.
Shaquille O’Neal was also overlooked after the NCAA was handed a single spot on the team for college player Christian Christian Laettner.
To add to the mystique of this extraordinary outfit, Magic Johnson returned to basketball after retiring from the NBA the previous year after an HIV diagnosis.
The team trained for six days under coach Chuck Daly in Monaco, including that legendary session where the best players in the world went at it.
“It was incredible. For us as a player it was the ultimate,’’ says Robinson of the greatest assemblage of basketball flesh on one court.
“A lot of times when you play with other players you make up for their deficiencies. But this was an opportunity to just play basketball with people who understood the game and could help each other.
“It was as sweet as could be. As far as great scrimmages go, that was basketball nirvana.”
Daly wasn’t crazy enough to issue curfews for that camp, not with night spot Jimmyz only opening at midnight.
The players dined with royalty, enjoyed the nude beaches and ran amok at night. Jordan did analyse some game tapes, but the rest studied their poker hands.
“Yeah, there was partying, you were dealing with the best of the best,’’ Robinson said with a chuckle.
“Chuck was very smart with those guys. He didn’t tie anyone down.
“We could play golf all day as long as we were willing to work hard.
“It was 90 minutes hard practice and when your leaders are guys like Michael and Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, you are going to work hard.”
The Olympic tournament was a breeze, as the players plundered sides while staying at luxury digs in the city.
But there were still flare-ups, with Croatia’s Kukoc crushed by Jordan and Pippen after signing at Chicago for millions while Pippen earned just $770,000 a season.
They held him to four points and 2-for-11 shooting in the pool clash before eventually beating Croatia by 32 points again in the gold medal game.
“People kind of make up stories at times, but there is no question they went after Toni,’’ Robinson recalls.
“You don’t know Pippen and Jordan if you don’t think they are not going to come after you. Those guys are animals.
“They will take the opportunity to take offence.
“People are going to try to embarrass you so if you want to call yourself great, don’t get embarrassed.
“Tony had two of the best players in the world coming after him and I felt a little bad for Toni.”
The Dream Team — a phrase coined by Sports Illustrated as it formed in 1991 — played glorious showboat basketball that thrilled Barcelona’s crowds.
It also enlivened world basketball, with IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch calling the basketball tournament Barcelona’s major success.
NBA basketball reciprocated that interest in the world game, with 30 per cent of NBA players now foreign-born — up from two per cent in 1980.
Robinson and his tight-knit group of fellow players flew back into America after the time of their lives and immediately pledged to beat the hell out of each other that NBA season.
But by then they had left a legacy for world basketball and laid down a marker for sport not rivalled to this day.
“The biggest thing is winning gold and standing on the podium with the team,’’ says Robinson.
“There are few times in your life when you know you are in a historical moment.
“I grew up watching the Olympics, grew up watching Mark Spitz and those memories were etched into my brain.
“I knew when I stood on the podium it would be an image etched into millions of people’s brains for the rest of their life.
“I knew we were in a moment. And that was just the best.”
Originally published as The US Dream Team assembled the greatest talent in sporting history — as well as some of the biggest egos
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