Much has been made of the renowned 1992 United States men’s basketball team (a.k.a “The Dream Team”) that won gold at the Barcelona Olympics. But what about the significantly less celebrated second Dream Team that also took home Olympic gold in Atlanta four years later? To Charles Barkley, who was a part of both rosters, it’s absolutely no comparison.
In an interview with Ric Bucher of Bleacher Report on Tuesday, Barkley spoke critically of his time with Dream Team II.
“The first Dream Team was one of the greatest experiences of my life,” said Barkley. “The second Dream Team was one of the worst experiences of my life. [In ’92,] for a couple of months, we got along like it was the greatest thing. In ’96, guys started complaining about playing time; guys were, like, ‘Well, I should be starting,’ and I was, like, ‘Wait a minute. You all ain’t even that good compared to the team I used to be on.’
“We had a couple guys—I’m not going to throw anyone under the bus—who skipped practice because they didn’t start or weren’t getting enough practice time,” Barkley continued. “It was not a lot of fun hearing guys bitch all the time about who was starting.”
By 1996, gone were the legendary leaders from the original Dream Team such as Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and Larry Bird. In their place entered then-unproven youngsters like Shaquille O’Neal and Grant Hill as well as strong, abrasive personalities like Gary Payton and Reggie Miller.
Dream Team II still went largely unchallenged on their way to gold in Atlanta (with an average margin of victory of 33.0 points per game). But nevertheless, it just goes to show the precarious balancing act of managing superstar egos in Olympic play, as well as how special the first Dream Team, arguably the greatest collection of basketball talent ever assembled, truly was.
