NBATV Dream Team Documentary Confirms Isiah was Blackballed

[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.

 

[Senser81]

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.

Interesting.

Charles Barkley
Penny Hardaway
Grant Hill
Hakeem Olajuwon
Karl Malone
Reggie Miller
Shaquille O'Neal
Gary Payton
Scottie Pippen
Mitch Richmond
David Robinson
John Stockton


This might be simplistic, but I think the 92 guys were probably as good in 1992 as they were in 1996. They were all still pretty much in their prime. If we can agree on that aspect, then we can eliminate the guys who were on both the 92 and 96 teams and instead just compare the different guys. So...

1996
Penny Hardaway
Grant Hill
Hakeem Olajuwon
Reggie Miller
Shaquille O'Neal
Gary Payton
Mitch Richmond

vs.

1992
Patrick Ewing
Larry Bird
Michael Jordan
Clyde Drexler
Chris Mullin
Earvin "Magic" Johnson, Jr.
Christian Laettner

Having Hakeem and Shaq is nice, but having Jordan on the 92 team is a huge difference, and I think a prime Drexler is easily better than guys like Lil Penny, Miller, and Richmond. I would still personally prefer the 92 team to the 96 team, but maybe I'm giving too much credit to Magic and Bird.

 

[Senser81]

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



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.

Not ripping on you, but its kind of a stupid concept for an article. Reminds me of the typical VSN poster...yeah, its not the best team ever, but I won't name which team was better.

 

[jaxjaggywires]

Not ripping on you, but its kind of a stupid concept for an article. Reminds me of the typical VSN poster...yeah, its not the best team ever, but I won't name which team was better.

Agreed...it would be a better write-up if he offered up alternatives. Aside from the already mentioned 1996 team, what other teams would fare well against the Dream Team? How would the 2008 Olympic team do? They were crazy athletic, far more than the 92 squad. Kobe vs. Jordan, Pippen vs. LeBron, Magic vs. Paul, Admiral vs. Howard. That would be a damn fine game to watch.

 

[Champ]

I want to go into the attic and find my old Dream Team shit but the last time I went into the attic I fell through the ceiling.

 

[FedEx227]

1996
Penny Hardaway
Grant Hill
Hakeem Olajuwon
Reggie Miller
Shaquille O'Neal
Gary Payton
Mitch Richmond

vs.

1992
Patrick Ewing
Larry Bird
Michael Jordan
Clyde Drexler
Chris Mullin
Earvin "Magic" Johnson, Jr.
Christian Laettner

Having Hakeem and Shaq is nice, but having Jordan on the 92 team is a huge difference, and I think a prime Drexler is easily better than guys like Lil Penny, Miller, and Richmond. I would still personally prefer the 92 team to the 96 team, but maybe I'm giving too much credit to Magic and Bird.

Not that they were a huge factor but depth wise Laettner is a killer when hypothetically 96 has guys like Shaq, Richmond, Payton coming off the bench. Again this is just hypothetical and discussion purposes, Laettner was non-factor but from a pure talent standpoint each of those guys are 50 times the player of Laettner (especially Shaq who is about 1,000 times the player).

I think most people look at Bird and Magic and go "oh yeah, those guys are legends!" but it would be like putting Shaq on that 2008 Redeem Team and proclaiming they had the legendary Shaquille O'Neal on their team.

Yeah, he WAS a legend, but like those guys at the edge of his career. If they were asked to defend someone like a Gary Payton or Reggie Miller, I'm not sure they'd be able to do it. Their speed would be too much, especially for Bird who was pretty much a spot up shooter for that 92 team. Magic could get up the floor but even watching the doc you can see he was about half speed from his prime.

 

[Senser81]

I think most people look at Bird and Magic and go "oh yeah, those guys are legends!" but it would be like putting Shaq on that 2008 Redeem Team and proclaiming they had the legendary Shaquille O'Neal on their team.

Yeah, he WAS a legend, but like those guys at the edge of his career. If they were asked to defend someone like a Gary Payton or Reggie Miller, I'm not sure they'd be able to do it. Their speed would be too much, especially for Bird who was pretty much a spot up shooter for that 92 team. Magic could get up the floor but even watching the doc you can see he was about half speed from his prime.

At what point does the discussion change from simple matching up of Player A vs. Player B, and looking at how the players would play as a team and other "intangibles" like desire. I think having Magic and Bird was a big factor as to how well the 92 team played together...I would guess that adding Shaq to the 2008 Redeem Team wouldn't really have the same effect. Also, I just don't see Jordan letting his 92 team lose to guys like Penny Hardaway and Reggie Miller. Perhaps I am still sipping the MJ Kool-Aid (Gatorade?).

 

[FedEx227]

Bourbon?

That is tough to say. It's a great discussion though. Hope we can keep it going, interested to see other opinions.

 

[Senser81]

Bourbon?

That is tough to say. It's a great discussion though. Hope we can keep it going, interested to see other opinions.

You are? I'm not.

 

[FedEx227]

I'm more interested to hear how a team with Jordan could never be beaten ever.

 

[Senser81]

I'm more interested to hear how a team with Jordan could never be beaten ever.

 

[jaxjaggywires]

At what point does the discussion change from simple matching up of Player A vs. Player B, and looking at how the players would play as a team and other "intangibles" like desire. I think having Magic and Bird was a big factor as to how well the 92 team played together...I would guess that adding Shaq to the 2008 Redeem Team wouldn't really have the same effect. Also, I just don't see Jordan letting his 92 team lose to guys like Penny Hardaway and Reggie Miller. Perhaps I am still sipping the MJ Kool-Aid (Gatorade?).

Any team with the 1992 era Michael Jordan was not losing...that's simply a fact, since that's what actually happened. Every full season he played between 1991 and 1998, the Bulls won the championship. Pippen was among the greatest defensive forwards in NBA history, and had the offense to go along with it. Bird has to be considered a coach-player, because he didn't even play in the actual Olympics because of his back.

Even with Laettner being an anchor weight as the 12th man, the talent in front of him from guys 1-10 (minus Bird, since he wasn't playing) was more than enough to make up for it. You can't just do a person-to-person comparison, because, as you stated, the whole was better than the sum of its parts.

Now, I still feel that the 2008 team would give the 1992 team a serious run, because Kobe has the killer mentality Jordan did (and was in the middle of a championship run), LeBron can run over anyone and jump out of the gym, and guys like Carmelo, Paul and Howard could more than fill their roles. It would all come down to playing as a team, which both squads proved they could do.

 

[FedEx227]

Blazers are a better team in Bulls/Blazers. There I said it.

 

[jaxjaggywires]

I'm more interested to hear how a team with Jordan could never be beaten ever.

In a single game, a team with 1992 Jordan could be beaten, sure...but in a series, it wasn't happening.

 

[FedEx227]

Any team with the 1992 era Michael Jordan was not losing...that's simply a fact, since that's what actually happened. Every full season he played between 1991 and 1998, the Bulls won the championship. Pippen was among the greatest defensive forwards in NBA history, and had the offense to go along with it. Bird has to be considered a coach-player, because he didn't even play in the actual Olympics because of his back.

Even with Laettner being an anchor weight as the 12th man, the talent in front of him from guys 1-10 (minus Bird, since he wasn't playing) was more than enough to make up for it. You can't just do a person-to-person comparison, because, as you stated, the whole was better than the sum of its parts.

Now, I still feel that the 2008 team would give the 1992 team a serious run, because Kobe has the killer mentality Jordan did (and was in the middle of a championship run), LeBron can run over anyone and jump out of the gym, and guys like Carmelo, Paul and Howard could more than fill their roles. It would all come down to playing as a team, which both squads proved they could do.

And that's where the 1996 team falls apart. They were all pretty apathetic, less than thrilled guys that didn't really get along that well. They were largely punks and didn't seem to ever grasp the same team concept that the 1992 team had. If it's talent vs. talent based off how they were playing at the time, 96 might be better. The better "team" was 1992. Now the 2008 team is definitely something pretty awesome, moreso because they had role players like Michael Redd that weren't stars but were great at their individual skill.

 

[jaxjaggywires]

Blazers are a better team in Bulls/Blazers. There I said it.

Well, with Glide and Kersey, you could leap from the free throw line every time...Duckworth wasn't horrible in that either, with Porter for 3 pointers.