Speaker 1: This is the Dream Team Tapes, a Diversion Podcasts original
Speaker 1: series in association with I Heart Radio. Coming into the
Speaker 1: nine Olympic Games in Seoul, South Korea, the United States
Speaker 1: had compiled an astonishing seventy one and one record in
Speaker 1: men's basketball. Basketball was our game and and no other
Speaker 1: venue was that so apparent as in the Olympics. But
Speaker 1: that year was different. While the rest of the world,
Speaker 1: who had been learning the game from the Americans, were
Speaker 1: sending their best players, the American team, made up of
Speaker 1: all college players, struggled to an embarrassing bronze medal finish.
Speaker 1: That was the last time we sent our boys. Now
Speaker 1: it was time to send our men. Larry Berd St.
Speaker 1: Michael sure for oh John stop Chris Mullet trust her magic. Well,
Speaker 1: let's see. Patrick Johnson said it was his best memory ever.
Speaker 1: I finally got St. Michael and Larry and also know
Speaker 1: them as men, and that that right there, for me
Speaker 1: was the best all the nine Michael Knox Days chairs.
Speaker 1: Michael Jordan used it as a scouting expedition was lightning
Speaker 1: for me because I never got to see how these
Speaker 1: better got lived. It was more of a scouting for me.
Speaker 1: I wanted to see how Madame jed game. Larry Bird said, well,
Speaker 1: good thing. It didn't go on any longer. I always say,
Speaker 1: if that team was together another two weeks, I had
Speaker 1: a lot of problems. You could see it. And the
Speaker 1: late great David Stern, who died on New Year's Day,
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, called me a bozo. Now what people
Speaker 1: don't remember. It's like boos like you that would say
Speaker 1: this is now the dream Team of clessed memory. They
Speaker 1: forget it. Charles Elbos angle in you know, bad sportsmanship
Speaker 1: the US. This is crazy. What are we doing going?
Speaker 1: And I hope you go back and giving Why are
Speaker 1: you sending these things? This is the humiliate people. Michael
Speaker 1: Coverage up this logo with the American plague. I mean
Speaker 1: it was a you know, now it becomes theatified. That
Speaker 1: is just a small sample of what I got during
Speaker 1: the two years it took me The right dream Team,
Speaker 1: the two thousand and twelve New York Times bestseller about
Speaker 1: what many, probably most considered the greatest team of all time.
Speaker 1: I'm Jack McCallum, and this is episode one of the
Speaker 1: Dream Team tapes. There will be eight podcast s in
Speaker 1: this series, and yes, everything that David Stern brought up,
Speaker 1: trust me will be covered by this bozo and much more. Somehow,
Speaker 1: I had managed to preserve all of my audio tapes
Speaker 1: from those magical years leading up to the formation of
Speaker 1: the Dream Team, the games in Barcelona, and even the aftermath.
Speaker 1: All that material was captured on an old fashioned radio
Speaker 1: shack recorder. You'll hear it all the voices of all
Speaker 1: twelve Dream teamers, companied by a few authentic scratches. I
Speaker 1: interviewed the players all over the place, at their homes,
Speaker 1: in their cars in the case of Larry Bird and
Speaker 1: Michael Jordan, in their offices. You'll hear the voice of
Speaker 1: the late Chuck Daly, the head coach of the Dream Team,
Speaker 1: and lots of material from his assistant, Mike Shaski. You'll
Speaker 1: get answers to all of those questions. How exactly was
Speaker 1: the team selected? Did Michael Jordan really want to play?
Speaker 1: Did he keep Isaiah Thomas off the team? Was there
Speaker 1: a rivalry for leadership of the Dream Team? Hint? Yes,
Speaker 1: Why did Charles Barkley throw the most famous elbow in
Speaker 1: Olympic history at a seemingly helpless in Golden Player. Charles
Speaker 1: claims to have a good reason. Now, Magic Johnson was
Speaker 1: just a half year remove from announcing that he had HIV.
Speaker 1: How did that play out? And did the story end
Speaker 1: when the Dream Team won the gold medal? No way.
Speaker 1: If you remember some of that stuff from the book,
Speaker 1: well okay, but there's more. This is the real stuff,
Speaker 1: none of which you've ever heard before in audio form.
Speaker 1: I feel fortunate to have been on a journey with
Speaker 1: these guys. I don't want to take you with me.
Speaker 1: Always in basketball circles, from time to time the subject
Speaker 1: of Olympic basketball comes up, and once again everyone conjures
Speaker 1: up the greatest team of all time. In this first episode,
Speaker 1: I wanted to give you a sense of what it
Speaker 1: was like to write the book, how the interviews went down,
Speaker 1: behind the scenes stuff I'm calling it why I had
Speaker 1: to pull out the operation card to get Larry Bird
Speaker 1: to talk. And as I set out to interview these guys,
Speaker 1: one thought was in my mind, Michael, Magic, Larry. I
Speaker 1: guess that's three thoughts. But there is a hierarchy of
Speaker 1: needs every time you're gathering information, and at the top
Speaker 1: of that hierarchy were Jordan's Magic and Bird. Now they
Speaker 1: would all present difficulties to round up Magic because he's
Speaker 1: so damn busy, Jordan because he's so damn elusive, and
Speaker 1: Bird because he's so damn moody and unpredictable. Get him talking.
Speaker 1: He's unbelievable. The key is to get him talking. I
Speaker 1: started out with Scottie Pipman. I arranged to meet him
Speaker 1: at a hotel near his home in Florida. With the
Speaker 1: exception of Christian Latener, Pippen was probably the player I knew,
Speaker 1: least on a personal basis, which is somewhat astounding, since
Speaker 1: I had done about three thousand, four hundred and seventy
Speaker 1: eight stories on the Bulls over the years, but they
Speaker 1: were rarely centered on Scottie. There were times I even
Speaker 1: went out to Chicago with the express purpose of doing
Speaker 1: a Pippin story, and then Jordan would go for forty
Speaker 1: nine and forty two and do something else outrageous, and
Speaker 1: Jesse Jackson would be hanging around his locker, and sure
Speaker 1: enough it would turn into another Michael Jordan's story. I
Speaker 1: even felt somewhat guilty then about my treatment of Pipping,
Speaker 1: especially since I knew I would end up asking him.
Speaker 1: Even in this interview about Jordan's and I did, and
Speaker 1: he was great and very honest. A sample. Michael is huge.
Speaker 1: He's getting hit last week, and most of the time
Speaker 1: it's good for him because he may score forty points,
Speaker 1: he may score thirty five points, and he's always going
Speaker 1: to have a spinoff that Michael it is but t is,
Speaker 1: you know. So you know we had to go to
Speaker 1: lows as a mean and as players you have to
Speaker 1: sure that and you have to read it. But you
Speaker 1: still gotta keep pushing bowl. You know. You think Michael
Speaker 1: ever admitted that he needed some behavior modificing that he
Speaker 1: needed the change whenever admit that. I walked away from
Speaker 1: that interview thinking, man, if I can get stuff like
Speaker 1: that from everybody, I'll be in good shape. And I'll
Speaker 1: always be grateful to Scotty for getting me off to
Speaker 1: a good start. When I went to visit Karl Malone
Speaker 1: at his home in Ruston, Louisiana, he said to me,
Speaker 1: be prepared, Jack. I noticed, ain't your thing. I walked
Speaker 1: in and I was in a wildlife museum. Hanging from
Speaker 1: the ceiling and walls were about one mounted animals big
Speaker 1: game that Malone had shot from Canada to Alaska and
Speaker 1: apparently according to what he said, they included the Grand
Speaker 1: Slam of sheep. Here is a Grand Slam of sheet
Speaker 1: right here in the honey world, those four sheet there
Speaker 1: would be the Super Bowl, NBA Championship, and all in
Speaker 1: the hunting world. She don't ask me what it is.
Speaker 1: This isn't wild Kingdom. Look it up. I could never
Speaker 1: figure out why Malone and I got along so well.
Speaker 1: I never fired a gun, never had the slightest interest
Speaker 1: in driving gargantuan tractor trailers, another Malone passion that I
Speaker 1: had written about. And I'm positive that I never wanted
Speaker 1: to get into a political discussion with him. But I
Speaker 1: always enjoyed his company, and he mined, presumably, and I
Speaker 1: guess it had something to do with his honesty. Anyway,
Speaker 1: if there were two players on the Dream Team who
Speaker 1: were not sympotico, it was Magic Johnson and Carl Malone.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you about that in future episodes. From Alone,
Speaker 1: I went to Stockton, I know it should have been
Speaker 1: the other way around, Stockton to Malone. The majority of
Speaker 1: John's fifteen thousand, eight hundred and six assists, most in
Speaker 1: NBA history, went to Carl. The interview, which took place
Speaker 1: in his hometown of Spokane was so impossibly Stockton I
Speaker 1: in first, he expressed horror when I pulled out my
Speaker 1: tape recorder. John, I didn't fly three thousand miles to
Speaker 1: Spokane not to take notes, Okay, he said reluctantly. Then,
Speaker 1: like a dutiful tour guide, he showed me around his hometown.
Speaker 1: Now we're looking down at Gonzaga's Niagara Falls. We had
Speaker 1: the World's Fair here in See. That's where the main
Speaker 1: hall was. We saw John's junior high. We saw Jack
Speaker 1: and Dan's, the bar that used to be owned by
Speaker 1: John's father and was a staple of every John Stockton
Speaker 1: story ever written. We walked around the campus of Gonzaga,
Speaker 1: where he really started on his unlikely road to superstardom.
Speaker 1: John also told me about his boyhood encounter with Isaiah Thomas,
Speaker 1: whose entry onto the Dream Team and his continued place
Speaker 1: on it after an injury is deeply connected to Isaiah.
Speaker 1: More on that later, but here is Stockton on meeting
Speaker 1: Isaiah at an a AU tournament when John was fifteen
Speaker 1: years old. We were driving through spoke hand by the way,
Speaker 1: so the quality is not that great. The game goes
Speaker 1: on at the inter corner. What it looked like to me,
Speaker 1: decided that he wasn't going to do a coach said
Speaker 1: anymore and break the press his way. He was just
Speaker 1: gonna trouble to it, so he drop through it, dunking.
Speaker 1: I could pay somebody to be that here now, Patrick Ewing.
Speaker 1: I never succeeded in getting much out of Patrick over
Speaker 1: the years. I liked him a lot and knew him
Speaker 1: back before he went to Georgetown. After he became a
Speaker 1: nick Patrick always agreed to talk, but he usually scheduled
Speaker 1: the interview after practice when he was getting post practice
Speaker 1: medical treatment, which meant I had about half his attention.
Speaker 1: But when I saw Patrick down in Orlando, he was
Speaker 1: in an assistant magic coach and is now the headman
Speaker 1: at Georgetown, his alma matter. He was loose and charming.
Speaker 1: He told me a funny story about Jordan from the
Speaker 1: nineteen four Olympics. We were horsing the run and he
Speaker 1: hit me in the headlock, and you know, I'm trying
Speaker 1: to get out of that. Pick him up and I'm
Speaker 1: trying to get out of it. I will. I wake
Speaker 1: up the next morning and I can't move my neck,
Speaker 1: I can't move my head. I'm trying to move my head.
Speaker 1: I could not move it. So what going to Bobby
Speaker 1: at the coach, I can't practice it and he's like,
Speaker 1: why because I got a quick at my neck I
Speaker 1: couldn't move. He got so pissed, though, but he got
Speaker 1: on meeting, you know, Michael. Obviously much more on Jordan
Speaker 1: to come. I really had no background with Christian Latener
Speaker 1: at all. I remember introducing myself to him after the
Speaker 1: Dream Team was picked and he basically looked through me
Speaker 1: as if to say, why should I care who you are?
Speaker 1: After that, I didn't even bother with him. But he
Speaker 1: was in a tough situation with the Dream Team. So
Speaker 1: many people thought he didn't belong and how the hell
Speaker 1: was he going to contribute much in any case? And
Speaker 1: here's what he said about that. If I'm not at
Speaker 1: that oppression around level, then I just a good kid
Speaker 1: with a good personality who knows his place. And if
Speaker 1: my place is very low on the totem pole. Because Magic,
Speaker 1: Chatson and Bird and Michael on the team, it was
Speaker 1: an easy transition. I'm very good at that role. I
Speaker 1: don't mind that role. It's a lot of fun. I
Speaker 1: caught up the Laatener during Bob Hurley senior's charity golf
Speaker 1: tournament in Montclair, New Jersey. It was a miserable day,
Speaker 1: and I wrote around with Christian in a golf cart.
Speaker 1: He didn't feel much like answering questions. He was having
Speaker 1: much publicized money problems at the time. But he was game,
Speaker 1: and he even offered me an extra umbrella out on
Speaker 1: the course. You know, it struck me how different Latener's
Speaker 1: experiences were from all the other players. So he was
Speaker 1: inside the team, he was almost an outsider, his perceptions
Speaker 1: more like those of a fan than one of the guys.
Speaker 1: He told me three things stuck out for him. First,
Speaker 1: the transitional speed of the game, that is, how fast
Speaker 1: things moved on changes of possessions. Even the so called
Speaker 1: quote slow players maybe Stockton and Chris Mullen, were much
Speaker 1: faster than the highest levels of the college game. Three
Speaker 1: steps faster at least number two. How passes were thrown
Speaker 1: the moment you got open, he just held out your
Speaker 1: hand in the ball arrived as the way Latner put it.
Speaker 1: And later, his favorite moment came in a practice session
Speaker 1: when two of his college teammates, Grant Hill and Bobby Hurley,
Speaker 1: had just arrived. They were part of a college all
Speaker 1: star team that would scrimmage the Dreamers, and they saw
Speaker 1: Charles Barkley go down the baseline against Karl Malone. Here
Speaker 1: is Latner describing it. So I'm playing and I see
Speaker 1: Bobby and Graham walked in and like a minute later,
Speaker 1: part be done down Malone and they're all like that. Well,
Speaker 1: let's move to Clyde Drexler O m G. As the
Speaker 1: kids say. Clyde and I had always gotten along pretty well.
Speaker 1: At times. I know he considered me one of those
Speaker 1: Jordan Canoe no wrong, and why aren't I recognized more writers?
Speaker 1: But he liked me, and I liked him. We did
Speaker 1: the interview at Clyde's house. He made me a delicious
Speaker 1: chicken salad sandwich. We talked about how our respective fathers
Speaker 1: had been butchers. We talked about how we had played
Speaker 1: golf together with Barkley and writer Jan Hubbard and Monte Carlo.
Speaker 1: But then he started in on a Jordan's tangent, claiming
Speaker 1: that did I think Jordan was better than me? No way?
Speaker 1: And here's a little bit of what he said. I'll
Speaker 1: clarify in a second more. He said he was bigger, faster, stronger,
Speaker 1: and the only thing Jordan could do better than him
Speaker 1: was shoot more Clyde Clyde. Clyde Clyde was damn good,
Speaker 1: as he says, but no, he was not better than
Speaker 1: Michael Jordan's. One of my all time favorite quotes, now
Speaker 1: maybe he had to be there, was offered by Rod Thorne,
Speaker 1: who drafted Jordan's when he was general manager of the
Speaker 1: Bulls and later became a much respected NBA executive. You'll
Speaker 1: be hearing from Rod later. Anyway, Rod had always enjoyed
Speaker 1: kidding Steve Snapper Jones, who was the Trailblazers announcer, a
Speaker 1: great guy himself. Snapper died a few years ago. Snapper
Speaker 1: would always claim that Drexler was just as good as Jordan's,
Speaker 1: and one day Rod said in his West Virginia drawl, Steve,
Speaker 1: y'all got t vs out there in Portland. If Clyde
Speaker 1: really wants to get Piste off, by the way, he
Speaker 1: can ponder this sound bite that I got from Jordan's. Man,
Speaker 1: that's taking speaking about yourself in the third person to
Speaker 1: a whole new level. One of my most enjoyable interviews
Speaker 1: was with Chris Mullen. I had found out he was
Speaker 1: going to be spending some time at his place in
Speaker 1: the Hampton's, so I said I would meet him there.
Speaker 1: My wife came with me the meals. They are a
Speaker 1: great bring money. Mullin was always the most unassuming, a
Speaker 1: prose a guy who jim ratted himself all the way
Speaker 1: to the Hall of Fame, overcoming a stay in alcohol
Speaker 1: rehab along the way. Chris was one of the few
Speaker 1: players to whom I showed a few minutes of what
Speaker 1: I called the greatest game nobody ever saw, the famed
Speaker 1: inter Squad Scrimmage and Monte Carlo and the subject of
Speaker 1: podcast number six in this series. Hey Liz came here,
Speaker 1: Chris shouted to his wife when I showed him a
Speaker 1: couple of seconds of Bird making a steal and converting
Speaker 1: a layup during the scrimmage. Watch Larry on this play.
Speaker 1: That spoke to the almost what I would call deification
Speaker 1: of Bird that took place among several members of the team.
Speaker 1: It came about because of Bird's quiet, unassuming leadership, his
Speaker 1: willingness to stay behind the scenes despite his iconic place
Speaker 1: in the game. It was obvious where I would go
Speaker 1: to interview David Robinson to the Carver School in San Antonio,
Speaker 1: a school for disadvantaged youth that he had at after
Speaker 1: he retired. David had always talked about doing it, and
Speaker 1: that's exactly what he did. Interestingly, whenever any of the
Speaker 1: other Dream teamers talked about David, they talked, of course
Speaker 1: about his athleticism and his intelligence, but also about how
Speaker 1: of all of them, Robinson was the least competitive. Here's
Speaker 1: what Jordan's said about Robinson and David. Robson loved music,
Speaker 1: he day basketball because he he said, sed, he is passionate,
Speaker 1: the same as a guy who oh me, he's wow.
Speaker 1: Michael used, enthralled. Now that isn't quite fair to David,
Speaker 1: who always claimed he was much more competitive than he
Speaker 1: was given credit for. But we had a long and
Speaker 1: fascinating conversation about how he always felt trapped between two worlds,
Speaker 1: between the student and the athlete, and the black world
Speaker 1: and the white world. I guess every kid says it's difficult.
Speaker 1: I mean I I thought it was. I thought it
Speaker 1: was difficult because I didn't been in really either world
Speaker 1: pretty much most of the time. Felt uncomfortable because you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, if I was in my classes
Speaker 1: and I was with you, you know, at the white boat.
Speaker 1: Everyone was nice to you up to a certain point,
Speaker 1: you know, but then you know you're still the different
Speaker 1: one and social glass shielding a little bit. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely,
Speaker 1: So you know, they would invite me to the little
Speaker 1: party and then you know, they play spending the bottle
Speaker 1: or something and they'd be like weak, you could be
Speaker 1: the referee, you know. So you know, it's that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. So so you know, you you felt like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, they're cool up to a certain point, but
Speaker 1: then you know, you go out into you know, I
Speaker 1: would go, you know, play ball or go hang out
Speaker 1: somewhere with you know, with with the other kids and
Speaker 1: black kids, and I'd be you know, it was fun
Speaker 1: up to a certain point, but then you know that
Speaker 1: we might be talking trash, something going on, you know,
Speaker 1: and I'd be like, if you speak a certain way
Speaker 1: or if you act a certain way, you know, sometimes
Speaker 1: they'll they'll call your uncle Tom or something like that.
Speaker 1: You know. Let's say, man, you know you're just you're
Speaker 1: not lacking up. And then on the other side, you're
Speaker 1: not white enough. So I think it's just it was
Speaker 1: probably a little bit of both those things, because you know,
Speaker 1: there are certain things I didn't feel comfortable. You know,
Speaker 1: people people who talk trash and they say stuff, and
Speaker 1: I didn't. I wasn't good at that game, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't like when people to say, you know,
Speaker 1: say something negative. Well, I want to a man who
Speaker 1: never seemed to have much trouble figuring out who he is,
Speaker 1: getting ahold of Charles Barkley and having him sit still
Speaker 1: for a couple of hours isn't easy. He'll return maybe
Speaker 1: one of my ten phone calls. So I made a
Speaker 1: call to the bullpen for Julie Five, the long time
Speaker 1: public relations person for the Phoenix Suns, who had kept
Speaker 1: Charles out of innumerable scrapes during his years as a son.
Speaker 1: One tool for a journalist. If you can't get somebody
Speaker 1: yourself very easily, you got to know who to go to.
Speaker 1: We talked about the usual stuff, including Charles elbowing the
Speaker 1: and Golden Player, which he did in the Dream Team's
Speaker 1: first game in Barcelona. Will get back to that. But
Speaker 1: considering Charles was only a little while removed from his
Speaker 1: celebrated d u I, during which he spent a weekend
Speaker 1: in jail in Arizona, it was hard to avoid the
Speaker 1: subject of drinking, even my drinking, and our conversation begins
Speaker 1: with Charles telling me he took a cab to dinner
Speaker 1: the background noises because we're in a restaurant in Phoenix.
Speaker 1: I was having this conversation with a cab drive on
Speaker 1: the way over here. That's how funny it is. He
Speaker 1: didn't drive over here. I can't drive. Were you in
Speaker 1: jail a long weekend? Already? Do to make money here?
Speaker 1: So there was Charles being all chased and careful watching
Speaker 1: my alcohol intake. And when we had finished with the interview,
Speaker 1: he asked me to drive him home because he had,
Speaker 1: you know, taken a cab to dinner. And I said sure,
Speaker 1: and we started home. In a few miles into the journey,
Speaker 1: Charles said, Jack, pull over here there was a bar.
Speaker 1: He invited me to join him. I declined. He assured
Speaker 1: me he could get at home. I didn't doubt that
Speaker 1: for a moment. We exchanged goodbyes, and I thought, as
Speaker 1: I always did when I was around him, the world
Speaker 1: would be a lot less interesting place without Charles Barkley
Speaker 1: in it. So Michael Magic Larry still had to get them.
Speaker 1: Negotiations were ongoing. He had a shot with Magic because
Speaker 1: he has a guy, a guy I've known for a
Speaker 1: long time, Lan Rosen. I kept calling Lawn finally caught
Speaker 1: up the magic at the two thousand eleven finals where
Speaker 1: he was doing commentary for ABC. We talked about a
Speaker 1: lot of things, including of course HIV. As man, you say, okay,
Speaker 1: let me just educate this guy. And I think that
Speaker 1: the commissioner Starn and the NBA did a wonderful job
Speaker 1: of educating the players. I did my part on educating
Speaker 1: the players, and then uh so I retired again after
Speaker 1: I was going to come back. Then we did a
Speaker 1: great job of educate not just a it but the
Speaker 1: world because the world was uh not educated in Welsh.
Speaker 1: So when you think about all the misinformation that was
Speaker 1: out there, so I had to be the person who
Speaker 1: could now, okay, let me give you the right information.
Speaker 1: Let me education. And then the Olympics actually gave me
Speaker 1: the platform to show the world a guy with HIV
Speaker 1: could deal play play at a high level and he
Speaker 1: wasn't going to get HIV by playing against me. More
Speaker 1: on that subject. Obviously, Jordan required some negotiation. You don't
Speaker 1: go through the team, meaning the Charlotte Hornets to get
Speaker 1: Michael you go through st Portnoy, Michael's long time and
Speaker 1: quite formidable gatekeeper. Besides Jordan's natural reticence, I had one
Speaker 1: other thing going against me, Jordan's long standing war with
Speaker 1: Sports Illustrated, which came about because of what Jordan considered
Speaker 1: an insulting cover we wrote about his baseball career. I've
Speaker 1: talked about it so often I feel like it's written
Speaker 1: on my forehead. I didn't have anything to do with
Speaker 1: that story, and Jordan didn't hold it against me. But
Speaker 1: in my request to Estey, I made sure to mention
Speaker 1: that Dream Team had nothing to do with Sports Illustrated. Okay,
Speaker 1: she finally wrote back, Michael will give you fifteen minutes,
Speaker 1: and the only subject to be discussed is the Dream Team. Now.
Speaker 1: A tip to young journalist, if you want to hear it.
Speaker 1: When somebody's representative gives you a time limitation and a
Speaker 1: subject restriction, just agree to it, particularly if he or
Speaker 1: she is repping somebody famous. Don't waste your time arguing
Speaker 1: with it. But when the time comes, simply ignore the
Speaker 1: mandate and keep going for as long as you can.
Speaker 1: Chances are, if you have the subject talking, he will
Speaker 1: just keep on talking half the time, the subject doesn't
Speaker 1: even know what was agreed upon or really doesn't care
Speaker 1: all that much. So we definitely veered far off the
Speaker 1: Dream Team script. Here's a little from Michael talking about
Speaker 1: one of the dark periods in his life after his
Speaker 1: proclivity for gambling was connected to his first retirement from
Speaker 1: the game, which happened after season. The league was they
Speaker 1: allowed all that to happen. You know, they knew I
Speaker 1: never had a gambon issue. They knew I had no
Speaker 1: connection with any kind of creaty. You know, Bob Field.
Speaker 1: You know I'm I'm tired of this game. I want
Speaker 1: to get away. That was just a taste. Jordan was
Speaker 1: beyond great. When I finished my interview with him, I
Speaker 1: thought books over, man, I got Jordan's He told me
Speaker 1: some great stuff. Let's move on. Except except Bird. Bird
Speaker 1: was then running the Indiana Pacers, and he had proven elusive.
Speaker 1: First he said he didn't want to do it. Now
Speaker 1: michaelane doing it. He told me, Michael's doing it. I said.
Speaker 1: Then we missed connections on a meeting. Then they went
Speaker 1: out to Indianapolis on Draft Day two thousand and eleven
Speaker 1: and Bird got tied up and we missed connections again,
Speaker 1: and he wouldn't return my phone calls. In the days
Speaker 1: turned into weeks, and the weeks in the months, and
Speaker 1: I had to write the book. And the only damn
Speaker 1: player I hadn't talked to was one who was really important,
Speaker 1: and one with whom I had enjoyed a good relationship
Speaker 1: over twenty five years. Now, there was a lot about
Speaker 1: Bird in the book I had written so far. People
Speaker 1: talked about him, I had old interviews. I could have
Speaker 1: even faked it, but it just bothered the hell out
Speaker 1: of me. So I threw a hail Mary. I called
Speaker 1: his secretary, who by this time had heard from me
Speaker 1: half a dozen times. Hey, listen, tell Larry I'm going
Speaker 1: in for a prostate cancer operation next Tuesday, I told her.
Speaker 1: And if I die on the operating table, my last
Speaker 1: thought was that Larry Bird blew me off for this book.
Speaker 1: See the thing is that was true, every bit of it.
Speaker 1: So Bird gets on the phone and says, Okay, what
Speaker 1: do you want. I can talk now, Larry Man can't
Speaker 1: do it this way. I gotta come see you in person.
Speaker 1: I've seen everybody in person. I'll be there on Monday, okay,
Speaker 1: And he said, Okay. Another tip for young journalists always
Speaker 1: see someone in person if possible. You can't feel the
Speaker 1: interview over a phone. It's easier for a subject to
Speaker 1: cut you off when you're not live. There's a certain
Speaker 1: flow to the conversation, and Bird was great talking about
Speaker 1: what he got out of the Dream Team, and in
Speaker 1: typical honest Bird fashion, talking about how some of it
Speaker 1: would have turned sour had it gone on any longer.
Speaker 1: So I left the Bird interview ecstatic, except for the fact,
Speaker 1: of course, that I was facing cancer surgery. But that's
Speaker 1: another story. But I felt great about the interview, all
Speaker 1: of the interviews. But the question was where to put
Speaker 1: the Bird stuff. I had finished the book by then.
Speaker 1: It was already in proof form, what editors called galleys,
Speaker 1: and when something is in galleys, they don't want you
Speaker 1: making a lot of changes. Well, I had a lot
Speaker 1: of changes after my conversation with Bird, But I had
Speaker 1: an idea. I told my editor I would make the
Speaker 1: chapter about Bird the final chapter of the book. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I would have to make a few other tweaks to
Speaker 1: the manuscript, but basically I would just be adding on material. See,
Speaker 1: Bird had told me two things that really stuck with me.
Speaker 1: One was about his father, I'll tell you about it later.
Speaker 1: And this was the other one, and it was about
Speaker 1: when he had decided to retire, a decision he had
Speaker 1: made though few knew it after the Celtics had lost
Speaker 1: in the playoffs to the Cleveland Cavaliers. When I walked
Speaker 1: off the floor in Cleveland playoffs, when I was walked
Speaker 1: off the court, I said, this is it and I
Speaker 1: loved that building. The second game I played an NBA
Speaker 1: regular season with restfield, were pulled up there, and I
Speaker 1: clearly believe it pulled up and you see it, said back,
Speaker 1: I don't. Oh my god, that's what I always dreamed of,
Speaker 1: freaking U basketball building in a corn field. That just
Speaker 1: to me just that. So when I last there, said,
Speaker 1: when I walked off that court that day, I said,
Speaker 1: what a what a great great ening an arena that
Speaker 1: rose out of a cornfield. That seems so magical, so bird,
Speaker 1: but also so at the essence of what sports is. Anyway,
Speaker 1: that is just the beginning of the Dream Team journey,
Speaker 1: and the next episode we'll be hearing about how all
Speaker 1: this came to be and why after over fifty years
Speaker 1: of Olympic competition, during which no NBA players suited up
Speaker 1: for the United States. There suddenly occurred this cosmic moment
Speaker 1: when it all came together. If you enjoyed The Dream
Speaker 1: Team Tapes, please follow, rate, and review wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts. The Dream Team Tapes is written and hosted
Speaker 1: by Jack McCallum. Executive producers Mark Francis and Scott Waxman,
Speaker 1: Executive producer for I Heart Media is shown to Turne.
Speaker 1: The Dream Team Tapes is a Diversion Podcasts original series
Speaker 1: in association with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.