EPILOGUE Close your eyes and imagine a basketball team made up of the twelve best players of an era. Picture Magic Johnson sharing laughs with longtime rival and friend Larry Bird, and Scottie Pippen trading passes with John Stockton. Add “Sir” Charles Barkley, Karl “the Mailman” Malone, David “the Admiral” Robinson, and Clyde “the Glide” Drexler into the mix. Top it off with Patrick Ewing, Chris Mullin, and straight from Duke University, future NBA star Christian Laettner.
Oh, and Michael Jordan, of course.
A dream? No — the Dream Team.
In 1992, these twelve players were given a unique opportunity to represent the United States at the Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. Unique, because it was the first time professional players were allowed to participate in the traditionally amateur games. A rule change in 1989 had opened the door for the sport’s superstars to form a team. Those superstars jumped at the opportunity to play together and to introduce their style of basketball to the world.
How did the world’s other basketball teams feel about facing the most dominant squad on Earth?
By all accounts, they were giddy with anticipation at just being on the same court with players they had never dreamed of meeting. They grabbed photos of themselves taken alongside Michael and the rest, sometimes off the court and sometimes, humorously, in the middle of a game! Sure, they all knew that they would likely be beaten by the United States, but these other teams didn’t care.
“For us, the silver is the gold,” quipped one coach.
There have been other Dream Teams since 1992, and each one has boasted the sport’s top players. Shaquille O’Neal, Grant Hill, Hakeem Olajuwon, LeBron James, Allen Iverson, and many more have ably represented the United States in the last two decades. But interestingly, every Olympic year finds the United States facing stiffer competition.
Are other nations choosing better players? Possibly — but perhaps the answer lies in the fact that those nations glimpsed just how magical the sport could be when they saw the original Dream Team play. And, inspired, they worked to bring their own basketball programs in line with the best.
If so, then the sports world is a luckier place. Basketball is a game of graceful athleticism that is thrilling to experience and exciting to watch. That’s something the original players back in 1891 realized, and every person to dribble, pass, and shoot a ball since has known.
In fact, when a basketball falls into the hands of a truly gifted player, it’s enough to make one believe that humans were meant to fly after all.