In case you don’t remember, The USA National Basketball Team won a gold medal at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. That team looked pretty impressive, but anyone who has been around for a while would stop short of calling them the Dream Team. Dream Team is a title reserved for the 1992 U.S. Olympic team, which consisted of some of the greatest players to ever play the game like Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, and Michael Jordan. According to USA Basketball President Jerry Colangelo, it’s fair to compare the 2012 team to the 1992 team.
“I think it will be a fair comparison with the Dream Team,” Colangelo said in a phone interview Thursday with FOX Sports Florida. “Look at the progress our players have made since (winning Olympic gold in) 2008. We have some of the greatest players of all time.
“You’re hearing Kobe (Bryant) right up there with the greatest of all time. Dwyane Wade and LeBron (James) are right up there. You’ve got to add up the names, and you look at the young guys like (Kevin) Durant as an example and (Derrick) Rose as an example. There’s so many. There’s only been one Dream Team, and that’s the way I think it should be. But there’s no question our team will be much stronger than we had in 2008. They’re more mature, more experienced and we’ve got more talent.”
Nobody wants to hear it, but Colangelo could be right. The current USA Basketball players are not legends because they are still playing — but most of them will be. It is made up of the same type of Hall of Fame-caliber talent that the 1992 team consisted of. The key, as always, will be chemistry. The 2008 team had it, but many argue that no team has ever gelled the way that the Dream Team did. If Durant, Rose, Bryant, Wade, and LeBron play well as a team, there’s no reason to believe they won’t be as good as the Dream Team. They just won’t be the Dream Team.
Chest bump to Pro Basketball Talk for the story.
