NBATV Dream Team Documentary Confirms Isiah was Blackballed

[Herm]

I had a basketball court rug on my floor and i had these. Most kids played with action figures while i was reeanacting victories over Cuba and Panama.


they played all their games at Rupp Arena on Herm's floor



I remember asking all of my family to go to McDonalds that Summer and to get me all of these cups as well....

[NAHSTE]

LOL I remember the plastic cups too. We only had the Chris Mullin and Larry Bird cups at my house.

[FedEx227]

I definitely had the cups.

I think one of my favorite things too is that dudes had different uniform numbers. Jordan is running around with a 6 or whatever, Barkley 12. I thought that was really cool for some odd reason.

[FirstTimer]

I definitely had the cups.

I think one of my favorite things too is that dudes had different uniform numbers. Jordan is running around with a 9 or whatever, Barkley 12. I thought that was really cool for some odd reason.

Fixed.

[NAHSTE]

I definitely had the cups.

I think one of my favorite things too is that dudes had different uniform numbers. Jordan is running around with a 6 or whatever, Barkley 12. I thought that was really cool for some odd reason.

:joeybats:

You're better than this. You don't remember all the hoopla when Vince Carter wore the fabled no. 9 in int'l competitions? "OMGNEXTJORDANOMG"

[dope]

you guys might have had toys and cups, but did anyone have this bad ass jacket like i did?

i remember being pissed cause i thought it'd be starter jacket quality, instead it was like wearing fucking paper it was so fucking thin.

plus it was like 1000 times more noisy than the noisiest wind breaker jacket

[FedEx227]

:joeybats:

You're better than this. You don't remember all the hoopla when Vince Carter wore the fabled no. 9 in int'l competitions? "OMGNEXTJORDANOMG"

I didn't remember what the exact number was. I wasn't a big jersey guy ever so I never bought one.

[Pitty]

LOL @ "Kick them on their ass" as risque trash talk.

[MvP]

Anyone else have this complete set of cards?

[Realist]

Anyone else have this complete set of cards?

I dont believe I have the whole set, but I know that I have a few of those somewhere. I know I have MJ

[jaxjaggywires]

I had a basketball court rug on my floor and i had these. Most kids played with action figures while i was reeanacting victories over Cuba and Panama.


they played all their games at Rupp Arena on Herm's floor



I remember asking all of my family to go to McDonalds that Summer and to get me all of these cups as well....

I still have that Starting Lineup set...and I know I had a whole set of those cups, but I haven't seen them in a long time, so they're probably lost to history.

[jeffx]

Much as I hate Isiah the executive, I always respected his game(I'll never forget his early 80s playoff duel against Bernard King). It was a disgrace he wasn't on the Dream Team, but it was either him or Jordan. I'm sure Larry Legend didn't want him either.

[Senser81]

Finally got around to watching this last night. Really good show. A couple thoughts:

*I think Bird had seen his good Celtics teams get lit up by Jordan in the playoffs, so he had already passed the baton to Jordan. Magic wasn't ready to let go, which is odd because his Lakers got beat soundly by the Bulls in the Finals and Pippen had shut him down.

*If you had 12 Michael Jordans on the Dream Team, it wouldn't have worked. I think that having Bird and Magic on that team made everyone more team-oriented.

*I did not find it strange that Ewing and Bird became friends, because they were probably the two most socially-backward players on the team.

*I don't think it was a disgrace that Isiah Thomas was left off the team. Who would he replace? I think Stockton was a much better fit for that team, and was probably the better player in 1992.

[jaxjaggywires]

Sam Smith of bulls.com says he doesn't believe the Dream Team is the greatest team ever assembled, for a variety of reasons...

Link

Dream Team was good, but best ever?
Contrary to popular belief, Bulls.com’s Sam Smith says the 1992 Dream Team that easily won the gold medal at the Summer Olympics in Barcelona 20 years ago is not the best team ever.

By Sam Smith | 06.18.2012 | 9:35 a.m. CT | asksam@bulls.com | @SamSmithHoops

One of the nice NBA features last week was the NBA TV documentary on the 1992 Dream Team. Given it was 20 years ago, it was a good viewing for a lot of fans who didn’t see much of that team. But I also need to straighten something out. It is my role as a dinosaur who actually worked for a real newspaper at one time: It wasn’t the greatest team ever assembled. It was a very good team, sure. But it was more like one of those traveling shows of ancient artifacts from Egypt. They are amazing to see after having heard so much about pharaohs and treasures. That’s what the NBA was to Europe two decades ago, legendary treasures.

The U.S. produced that with Michael Jordan, who hardly was ancient. But there was Larry Bird, who had retired and was playing only for the tournament with his bad back, and Magic Johnson, who had left the NBA with the HIV virus. Johnson hadn’t played for a year. He eventually would return, but would never be close to the same player. John Stockton was hurt and didn’t play much and Isiah Thomas was left out. So the team basically had no point guard. Chris Mullin was their only true perimeter shooter as guards Jordan and Clyde Drexler shot below 30 percent on threes in the tournament even with the shorter line. Patrick Ewing and David Robinson were good, but most wouldn’t have them on the list of the 10 best centers ever. The league’s best center, Hakeem Olajuwon, was ineligible at the time as he was not yet a U.S. citizen. So you had high level forward rotation with Charles Barkley, Karl Malone and Scottie Pippen.

It was a terrific team. But, no, without perimeter shooting, true point guard play and without a truly transcendent center, it’s difficult to see how it could have been the best team ever assembled.

One of the things I take issue with is him saying "most" would have Ewing and Robinson out of the top 10 all-time in centers...Ewing, maybe, but I would include Robinson in my list.

[FedEx227]

I was talking with FirstTimer on Facebook about this but I think that 96 team was better.

Granted that 96 team was made up of guys largely in their prime while a lot of the featured 92 guys were on the tail end of their careers. If it was prime vs. prime no doubt 92 is the best ever, but that 96 team with All-American Hakeem and Shaq is just ungodly.