Celebrating the Dream Team 20 Years Later

As a seven year old kid in the summer of 1992 I never fully appreciated the athletes in the NBA. Twenty years later I look back and tell myself how cool it was to see all the megastars in the NBA put their ego’s aside and represent their country. They were coached by Chuck Daley who was assisted by Mike Krzyzewski, Lenny Wilkens and P.J. Carlesimo. The team was consisted of Charles Barkley, Larry Bird, Clyde Drexler, Patrick Ewing, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Christian Laettner, Karl Malone, Chris Mullin,Scottie Pippen, David Robinson, and John Stockton.

They set the tone in the Tournament of Americas which took place in early summer of 2005 where they beat Venezuela in the finals. They went 6-0 in the tournament and started their domination of that summer. The Olympics came and the results spoke for themselves. Here is a look at the domination they had in 1992

vs. Angola 116-48

vs. Croatia 103-70

vs. Germany 111-68

vs. Brazil 127-83

vs. Spain 122-81

vs. Puerto Rico 115-77

vs. Lithuania 127-76

vs. Croatia 117-85

As a result of of this domination they won the Gold Medal in Barcelona. Its been almost 20 years since the USA Men’s Basketball team put the world on notice. Since 1934, the USA has won a lot of medals and here is what I mean by lots of medals:

Gold: 1936, 1948,1952, 1956, 1960, 1964,1968, 1976, 1984, 1992,1996, 2000, 2008
Silver: 1972
Bronze: 1988, 2004

The USA may have won the Gold before and after but the Dream Team of 1992 set the tone and made an impact. They made so much of an impact they were inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2010 which is huge because only 7 teams prior to them have been inducted.

The question is can the United States produce a team with such greatness as the 1992 team? Many people say that the 2012 team could be even better then the 1992 team. We will have to stay tuned to see if that is true but for now here is a preview of what’s to come

NBA Olympics

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