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This year marks the 25th anniversary of the greatest compilation of basketball players ever assembled into one team. The “Dream Team” embarked on their journey to show the rest of the world the superiority of United States basketball talent in the 1992 Summer Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain. The Detroit Pistons head coach, Chuck Daly, Atlanta Hawks coach, Lenny Wilkins, and Duke University’s head coach, Mike Kryzewski, were tasked with the job of guiding the USA squad, which was comprised of 11 NBA players, all of which are now enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame. The roster included Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, David Robinson, Scottie Pippen, John Stockton, Karl Malone, Charles Barkley, Clyde Drexler, Patrick Ewing, and Chris Mullin. The only non NBA player on the roster, Christian Laettner, was heralded as one the greatest college players of all time.
Before making it to the Olympic Games, the team was required to qualify via the Tournament of the Americas. During the six qualifying match ups, the Dream Team would give the world a taste of what was to come, annihilating all six opponents by point differentials of 79, 44, 60, 41, 38, and 47 points. Needless to say they would be the favorites heading into Barcelona.
Basketball in the Olympics are organized by pool play which includes four teams that attempt to qualify for the knockout round where each team that loses gets knocked out of contention. Angola, Croatia, and Germany were the unfortunate teams to be included in “group of death“, along with the United States.
Once the team arrived at the games, the story continued right where they left off, beating Angola 116-48 in their first contest. Next up, Croatia, who had the best shot at not losing by 30, ultimately falling 103-70. Rounding out pool play, the USA team comfortably beat Germany, 111-68 to head into the knockout round on a high note.
Continuing the trend, the Dream Team cruised through the first four rounds of knockout play, beating Brazil 127-83, Spain 122-81, Puerto Rico 115-77, whom they already played back in qualifying, and Lithuania 127-76 en route to a rematch with Croatia, led by Tony Kukoc, the new teammate of two of the Dream Team’s players, the Chicago Bulls Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, in the Gold medal match.
For Jordan and Pippen, it was a chance to let their new teammate know what to expect the next year in the NBA. They proceeded to completely shut down the Croatian star, taking turns defending him throughout the game. Their desire to embarrass their opponent in the final game of the Olympics led the United States to a 103-70 victory to claim the Gold medal in Barcelona.
The Dream Team was lead in scoring by Barkley (18 PPG), Jordan (14.9 PPG) and Malone (13 PPG), rebounding by Malone, Ewing, and Barkley, and assists by Pippen, Johnson, and Jordan.
Since then, the United States have won Gold in five of the past six Olympic Games. The most notable included the 2012 team that was led by Kobe Bryant and Lebron James whom have said they would beat the 1992 Dream Team if they had the chance to play. Perhaps due to the international growth of the game leading to a smaller international talent margin, the margins of victory have decreased over the past 25 years. The only way to test that theory in the future would be through simulations on Xbox or Playstation. Until then, the 1992 United States Dream Team remains the undisputed “greatest team ever assembled”.
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