WEBVTT - Vive Barcelona 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:04.120 This is The Dream Team Tapes, a Diversion Podcasts original 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:11.440 series in association with I Heart Radio. This is the 0:00:11.520 --> 0:00:14.200 story of the United States Olympic basketball team that won 0:00:14.280 --> 0:00:28.880 gold in Barcelona, known worldwide as the Dream Team. Well 0:00:28.920 --> 0:00:31.840 we all know what that is and spoiler alert. The 0:00:31.920 --> 0:00:35.360 United States Dream Team won the gold medal in Barcelona, 0:00:36.159 --> 0:00:40.159 but it wasn't as simple as marching to the podium, 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:43.120 hearing the national anthem and waving to the crowd. They 0:00:43.159 --> 0:00:46.040 did all that, but there was a subplot in between, 0:00:46.600 --> 0:00:48.600 and I'm going to tell you about that at the 0:00:48.720 --> 0:00:52.600 end of this episode seven of the Dream Team Tapes, 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:57.440 which I'm calling Beva Barcelona because I Jack McCallum had 0:00:57.520 --> 0:01:01.000 three years of high school Spanish. We've been to practices 0:01:01.000 --> 0:01:04.200 in San Diego, to the Gaming tables and the Immortal Scrimmage, 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:06.959 and Monte Carlo, and now the Dream Team at long 0:01:07.080 --> 0:01:10.480 last is in Barcelona, where the world awaits the epic 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:15.080 battle between the United States and Angola. Actually we do 0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:18.199 remember that battle, though epicott was not for a reason 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:21.080 we'll get into later, and which involves, of course, Sir 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:25.039 Charles Barkley himself. There's much to cover in this episode 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:27.760 the attention given to the Dream Team, which will be 0:01:27.800 --> 0:01:31.120 the hardest thing to describe. The so called family room 0:01:31.120 --> 0:01:34.520 in the Ambassador Hotel, where the alpha males Jordan, Magic, 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:38.199 Barkley and Bird played cards all night and argued about 0:01:38.280 --> 0:01:42.240 championship rings, and where Bird's young son Connor used to 0:01:42.319 --> 0:01:46.039 roll poolballs loudly down the stairs toward the lobby. There 0:01:46.120 --> 0:01:48.960 is a frightening intensity with which Jordan and Scottie Pippen 0:01:49.000 --> 0:01:52.600 faced their meeting with croatious Tony ku Coach, who drew 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:56.840 their collective ire because Bulls general manager Jerry Krauss wanted 0:01:56.880 --> 0:01:59.760 to pay cou Coach a lot of money, which Pippen 0:01:59.800 --> 0:02:03.040 fell was being lifted from his pocket. There is a 0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:06.520 dramatic struggle of the Lithuania team to win the bronze medal. 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:09.760 The Grateful Dead had helped fund their unlikely path to 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:13.120 the Olympics, and in the Dream Team book, I called 0:02:13.160 --> 0:02:17.560 Lithuania the tai Died Darlings. Like many others, I still 0:02:17.560 --> 0:02:22.280 have my Lithuania T shirt from those Barcelona games. And finally, 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:25.760 after the gold medal was secured by the Dream Team, 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:28.800 we had an unpleasant civil war of sorts between the 0:02:28.880 --> 0:02:33.320 Dream teamers and USA Basketball. All that is coming so 0:02:33.800 --> 0:02:39.040 Barcelona for reasons that escaped me. Thirty years later, David Dupree, 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:41.320 my closest buddy on the Dream Team, beat the Hall 0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:44.720 of Fame writer from USA today. He and I decided 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:49.639 to drive from Monte Carlo to Barcelona. This was pre GPS, remember, 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:53.040 and armed only with an unreadable road map and that 0:02:53.120 --> 0:02:56.600 elementary Spanish, David and I made the seven hour trip 0:02:56.639 --> 0:02:59.799 in a mirror ten hours, narrowly avoiding a wrong turn 0:02:59.880 --> 0:03:03.400 that would have taken us to the Pyrenees Mountains. Credential 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:05.560 check in at the airport was fairly organized, and I 0:03:05.560 --> 0:03:08.000 said to David, man, this is pretty calm. So when 0:03:08.040 --> 0:03:10.400 David I separated and I got to my hotel, I thought, 0:03:11.120 --> 0:03:12.839 you know, maybe I'll take a stroll over to where 0:03:12.840 --> 0:03:15.919 the Dream Team is staying, which was the newly built 0:03:15.919 --> 0:03:19.080 Ambassador Hotel, which, by the way, much to the horror 0:03:19.120 --> 0:03:22.359 of the U, S O C and USA Basketball, had 0:03:22.400 --> 0:03:25.240 been a large hole in the ground only a year earlier. 0:03:25.800 --> 0:03:27.760 But maybe I'll go over the Ambassador, grab a beer 0:03:27.800 --> 0:03:31.040 with the great NBA pr men Brian McIntyre and Terry Lyons, 0:03:31.639 --> 0:03:34.600 grab a quote or two from Charles or carl and Malone, 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:39.080 whoever else might be roaming around the lobby. And but 0:03:39.200 --> 0:03:42.320 what in the hell was I thinking? Eighteen months earlier, 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:45.120 I had seen for the first time what happened the 0:03:45.160 --> 0:03:47.920 crowds that form when we took that photo in Charlotte, 0:03:47.960 --> 0:03:53.080 North Carolina. I had seen opposing teams stop practicing and 0:03:53.160 --> 0:03:56.480 start taking photos when the Dream Team came out. So 0:03:56.560 --> 0:04:00.960 why did I not anticipate the thousands of people who 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:04.640 surrounded the Ambassador Hotel where the Dream Team had checked 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:09.920 in several hours earlier. It was chaos, was bedlam, thousands 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:14.720 of fans, thousands grouped outside the hotel, dozens and dozens 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:19.480 of police security men in riot gear. The hotel entrance 0:04:19.560 --> 0:04:22.440 was cordoned off, and there were barriers set up all 0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:27.839 over the place, helicopters flying overhead. The metaphor that usually 0:04:27.880 --> 0:04:30.400 came to mind, and the one that was written the most, 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:33.560 was the mayhem associated with the Beatles first trip to 0:04:33.600 --> 0:04:38.080 America in nineteen I remembered I was there, well, not 0:04:38.360 --> 0:04:41.200 there there in New York City, but I was watching 0:04:41.200 --> 0:04:46.200 on TV. Here's Dick Eversole, then the president of NBC Sports, 0:04:46.440 --> 0:04:49.560 the presenting network of the Olympics. On one explanation of 0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:52.600 the phenomenon, I'm not sure the same thing would have happen. 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:55.080 Different teams has been here, and they were in Chicago, 0:04:55.320 --> 0:04:59.000 l a New York about this was Europe, which also 0:04:59.080 --> 0:05:01.200 had its own, had its own and had its own 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:05.320 lower share of basketball, and the gods of basketball and 0:05:05.480 --> 0:05:08.159 get sented l and they never had been there before, 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:10.240 and this was their chance to touch him. As you 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:14.679 know better than me, Spain is a huge basketball haven. 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:17.800 In one respect, this level of attention that I can 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:22.560 only call pornographics seemed I don't know, less innocent than 0:05:22.600 --> 0:05:25.719 the attention given the mop heads from Liverpool. We were 0:05:25.760 --> 0:05:28.720 well into the age of terrorism. The massacre at the 0:05:29.640 --> 0:05:32.560 two Munich Olympics was never far from the minds of 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:36.359 NBA security, and I learned later there were snipers with 0:05:36.440 --> 0:05:41.240 oozies in nearby buildings. Two things about this scene. Number One, 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:45.760 it never changed. I kept waiting for the lines, the acclaim, 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:49.719 the yelling, the waiting, the anticipation, the longing for the 0:05:49.800 --> 0:05:53.040 dream team. I kept waiting for it to change. It 0:05:53.240 --> 0:05:57.000 never changed, not for two weeks of the Olympics. And 0:05:57.080 --> 0:06:00.440 number two, as far as we know, there were no 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:03.799 terroristic threats against the Dream Team. It went off without 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:07.440 a dangerous hitch. The biggest worry for the security people 0:06:07.920 --> 0:06:11.840 was Barkley's insistence that he would not be constrained from 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:17.000 walking around town, particularly strolling along Los Rumbles in the 0:06:17.040 --> 0:06:20.280 midnight hours. I think of Times Square in the nineteen 0:06:20.360 --> 0:06:24.039 seventies that was Lost Rumbless. Much has been written about that, 0:06:24.080 --> 0:06:27.360 including by me, whose final week story the Olympics was 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:31.880 about following Barkley around on that fame stretch of Barcelona nightlife. 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:34.640 I know, not a tough beat, right, I'm not going 0:06:34.680 --> 0:06:37.719 to go into it anymore. Google Barkley and Lost Rumbless 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:41.640 and he can probably spend the whole day reading later on. 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:45.040 I did get inside the Ambassador Hotel from time to time. 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:48.440 I interviewed Magic and Chuck daily. There. I saw the 0:06:48.440 --> 0:06:52.520 players kids running around, peeked into the private players sanked them, 0:06:52.520 --> 0:06:55.040 which in the Dream Team book I referred to as 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:57.599 the coolest room in the world, which I'll talk about 0:06:57.600 --> 0:07:00.760 soon now. The night after we got to Barcelona, Dupre 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:03.279 and I went out to dinner with Karl Malone. I 0:07:03.400 --> 0:07:06.400 was surprised the extent to which Carl was not pleased 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:10.040 about the Fame pickup game in Monte Carlo. He just 0:07:10.160 --> 0:07:13.200 did not like all the jive trash talking, and he 0:07:13.280 --> 0:07:16.600 did not like Magic kind of co opting the team 0:07:16.680 --> 0:07:19.480 as he saw it. Yet, when David and I asked 0:07:19.480 --> 0:07:22.360 about getting a photo of the Dream Team, the mailman 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:26.280 quickly said, I'll ask Magic. He's our captain. He handles 0:07:26.360 --> 0:07:29.920 all that kind of stuff. I found it interesting that Malone, 0:07:29.960 --> 0:07:33.280 no fan of Magic, so quickly acknowledged that Magic was 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:37.400 the boss for that kind of stuff. Now about that 0:07:37.440 --> 0:07:40.720 photo request. On the list of people in the entire 0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:44.480 world who, under normal circumstances would be reluctant to request 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:47.840 the photo with athletes, I would be second, most likely, 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:52.040 most likely would be Dave Dupree. Yet he had the idea, 0:07:52.160 --> 0:07:55.120 and I quickly said, okay. It was an indication of 0:07:55.120 --> 0:07:57.080 what that summer of the Dream Team was, like, how 0:07:57.120 --> 0:08:00.000 special it was, how special we knew it would contin 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:02.680 you to be. We did indeed get that photo taken 0:08:03.560 --> 0:08:08.000 under mortifying circumstances. That story to come the next day. 0:08:08.080 --> 0:08:10.920 Two days before the Dream Team's first Olympic game on July, 0:08:12.520 --> 0:08:14.560 the team members trooped in for one of the most 0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:19.240 entertaining press conferences I've ever attended. For one thing, most 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:22.280 of the international journalists began applauding as soon as the 0:08:22.280 --> 0:08:25.720 team walked in. That doesn't happen in America, though Donald 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:28.920 Trump would certainly like it to. Questions were all over 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:31.400 the place, one of them from a journalist who had 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:35.160 apparently never seen an NBA game and ask a question 0:08:35.200 --> 0:08:38.800 that can be summarized as sometimes you make a basket 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:43.000 that's worth two points and sometimes it's worth three, to 0:08:43.040 --> 0:08:45.960 which Carl Malone responded, that's just the way we do it, 0:08:46.040 --> 0:08:49.440 my man. So many times in subsequent years, I'll answer 0:08:49.480 --> 0:08:52.880 an unanswerable question the same way. That's just the way 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:54.800 we do it, my man. It was out of this 0:08:54.840 --> 0:08:57.280 press conference that one of the most immortal Olympic lines 0:08:57.360 --> 0:08:59.800 was uttered by Charles, the one you heard about Angola. 0:09:00.400 --> 0:09:04.120 The weird thing is, for years, myself and almost everybody 0:09:04.559 --> 0:09:08.719 thought that Charles said, I don't know nothing about Angola, 0:09:09.160 --> 0:09:12.120 but Angola is in trouble. But he didn't. He actually 0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:16.680 used correct English. I don't know anything about Angola, but 0:09:16.800 --> 0:09:20.800 Angola is in trouble. I'm not sure why it was 0:09:20.840 --> 0:09:24.440 so funny, but it was remained so Mike Wilbon, the 0:09:24.440 --> 0:09:27.400 great ESPN commentator, used to call Charles up from time 0:09:27.440 --> 0:09:30.880 to time and just leave a message, I don't know 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:34.440 nothing about Angola and just left it there. There was 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:37.640 an alternate theme going on in Barcelona before the Games, 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:41.720 a theme that contrasted with the devotional manner with which 0:09:41.760 --> 0:09:44.960 the Dream Team was treated by adoring fans who camped 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:49.520 out outside of the Ambassador Hotel. It was a steam 0:09:49.640 --> 0:09:53.600 these damn millionaires are messing up the Olympics, steam echoed 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:55.560 by many of the pooh bas in the U s 0:09:55.600 --> 0:09:59.920 o C and a few IOC officials. At first, it's 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:03.760 entered on, hey, they're not even staying in the athletes village, 0:10:04.120 --> 0:10:07.319 something that had been made clear two years earlier when 0:10:07.360 --> 0:10:11.720 open competition was established. Everybody knew that Michael Jordan's and 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:15.720 Magic Johnson and Larry Bird ain't going a bunk with nobody, 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:19.440 and they ain't sharing a communal bathroom. Jordan could have 0:10:19.440 --> 0:10:21.760 bought the entire Olympic Village with the money he laid 0:10:21.760 --> 0:10:24.280 out on a casual nassau bed on the golf course. 0:10:24.920 --> 0:10:27.040 Then word filtered out that most of the Dream Team 0:10:27.080 --> 0:10:30.040 would not attend the opening ceremonies, though several of them 0:10:30.080 --> 0:10:33.400 wanted to, it was thought to be way too chaotic. 0:10:34.000 --> 0:10:36.920 Word got back to NBC Sports president Dick Eversol I've 0:10:36.920 --> 0:10:39.840 referred to him before, who sprung into action and moved 0:10:39.840 --> 0:10:43.280 heaven and earth to deliver the Dream teamers to the 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:46.880 Olympic gate just minutes before they had to walk in. 0:10:47.720 --> 0:10:51.040 Everybody else had to get there three hours earlier, and 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:54.360 that was just not going to fly. It was like magic, 0:10:54.960 --> 0:10:58.440 and magic did come, and a fact, if memory serves, 0:10:58.800 --> 0:11:01.560 the only ones who did not were Jordan's who was 0:11:01.600 --> 0:11:04.600 still afraid of potential mauling and who had enjoyed the 0:11:04.600 --> 0:11:09.120 ceremonies back in, and Bird, who was thinking only of 0:11:09.160 --> 0:11:14.480 his back. Now, exactly what everybody feared would happen happened. 0:11:15.040 --> 0:11:18.240 Upon spying the Dream Team in the procession. Athletes from 0:11:18.280 --> 0:11:20.920 all over the place broke ranks ran over to the 0:11:20.920 --> 0:11:25.200 players to take photos, grab autographs, or just genuinely hang on. 0:11:25.559 --> 0:11:28.479 I can still see in my mind's eye a diminutive 0:11:28.559 --> 0:11:32.680 gymnasts from somewhere jumping up to touch Magic and David Robinson. 0:11:33.400 --> 0:11:36.000 It was a splendid scene, and it spoke to this 0:11:36.160 --> 0:11:39.679 reality as much as the dream Team drew attention away 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:42.880 from the other athletes. Most of them loved it. They 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:45.199 loved being in the same arena with these guys. It 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:48.560 was a kind of transfer of importance to it. The 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:52.679 objections came, for the most part from the executives, the bureaucrats, 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:56.960 because that's usually where objections come from. Okay, time to 0:11:57.000 --> 0:12:00.280 play Game one, Angola. The hundreds of journalists who had 0:12:00.280 --> 0:12:02.560 come to Portland knew what to expect about the result, 0:12:03.040 --> 0:12:07.000 but there was still an air of anticipation before the game. Actually, 0:12:07.040 --> 0:12:09.640 I made that up. I didn't feel anything, but then 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:14.600 someone made it interesting. The elbow thrown by Barkley on 0:12:14.679 --> 0:12:18.600 an in Golden player named Herlando Coinbra was so unexpected 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:21.640 that not many people saw it, and they certainly didn't 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:24.760 know why it happened. And no, the officials did not 0:12:25.000 --> 0:12:28.320 throw Barkley out. When I interviewed Charles for the book 0:12:28.360 --> 0:12:32.000 in two thousand eleven, he still insisted that Herlando Coinbra, 0:12:32.760 --> 0:12:36.360 the Herlando Coinbra had it coming. That bothered me that 0:12:36.400 --> 0:12:39.480 people didn't understand what happened at night, You know what, 0:12:39.559 --> 0:12:43.520 they started a full brawl like the next game against 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:48.720 pain Charles Police. Here's Jordan's on the subject of Charles's elbow. 0:12:48.880 --> 0:12:50.880 The only other game that I remember that you know, 0:12:50.880 --> 0:13:00.360 they really did, Barkley, he said, we played here in 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:04.599 total admiration about autographs before the game, and in the 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:10.559 first quarter he hit the Grit album. Dude, total adiration 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:13.480 of everything we did. We killed him that way. I 0:13:13.520 --> 0:13:16.760 don't know. It wasn't even game even him down. You 0:13:16.840 --> 0:13:22.200 guys had to one run. It wasn't when he hit 0:13:22.240 --> 0:13:30.360 the Garedy album that was trying to take atographer beginning 0:13:30.400 --> 0:13:33.000 to game. It's comic relief now, but there was a 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:36.360 certified big deal then because of this ugly American tag 0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:39.000 that had been attached to the Dream Team in some quarters. 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:43.520 What happened eventually, though, is that Barkley actually became the 0:13:43.640 --> 0:13:48.679 team's biggest ambassador, not just the teams, the entire United 0:13:48.760 --> 0:13:52.960 States Olympic delegation. He was out in public, he attended events, 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:56.040 he worked the crowd, he shook hands with other athletes, 0:13:56.080 --> 0:13:58.600 and most of all, as I said before, he became 0:13:58.679 --> 0:14:12.200 a pied piper on law Rombliss well into the morning hours. Now. 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:14.839 The Dream Team or second game, which was against Croatia, 0:14:15.480 --> 0:14:18.080 was just as memorable, but for an entirely different reason. 0:14:18.800 --> 0:14:22.000 It became widely known as the Ku Coach Game. At 0:14:22.040 --> 0:14:24.720 the time, Bulls general manager Jerry Krauss was so intent 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:28.800 on signing the young Yugoslavian star Tony ku Coach, who 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:31.520 was a multi talented six ft ten inch left hander, 0:14:32.120 --> 0:14:36.040 that he had refused to extend Pippin's contract because he 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:38.880 wanted to save money to offer it to kup Coach, 0:14:39.280 --> 0:14:43.760 whom he had selected in the draft that was not 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:47.120 going to fly. Pippin, with the help of Jordan's, decided 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:50.560 they would absolutely destroy Ku Coach, who had no idea 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:53.680 what was coming and was at any rate distracted by 0:14:53.720 --> 0:14:55.960 the imminent birth of his son, which in fact did 0:14:56.000 --> 0:14:58.560 occur a couple of days after the Ku Coach game. 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:02.240 There were two things that every single Dream Teamer mentioned 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:04.880 to me in the separate interviews I did for the book. 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:09.200 The first was the unlikely Harry and Larry relationship between 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:12.240 Ewing and Bird. The second was the Coup Coach game. 0:15:13.120 --> 0:15:15.120 Now you have to understand the backdrop to an extent. 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:19.160 The Dream teamers were tired of non competitive basketball. Their 0:15:19.280 --> 0:15:23.120 lifeblood was competition, and as fun as it was to 0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:26.440 play together with great players. They missed the taste of 0:15:26.520 --> 0:15:29.280 a real challenge. Strong Man though he might have been, 0:15:30.000 --> 0:15:34.680 cou Coach represented a real challenge. Here's magic remembering Jordan 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:37.520 and Pippen before the Croatia game. But I'd say you, 0:15:37.760 --> 0:15:43.440 Michael and Scott was so ready for the Crocia They 0:15:43.520 --> 0:15:45.840 were like, look, I don't want no help. I'm gonna 0:15:45.880 --> 0:15:49.600 shut them down. And we were like, wow, they are 0:15:49.800 --> 0:15:54.240 so focused and it made us all get focused because 0:15:55.000 --> 0:15:58.200 they really wanted to stopped telling me. And here's Jordan 0:15:58.400 --> 0:16:02.040 himself on the Coup Coach game. We're not gonna have 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:05.320 to get past, you know for Craft reperies. So much 0:16:06.160 --> 0:16:10.080 credibility hit you know what we've just earned in terms 0:16:10.160 --> 0:16:13.360 of you know, championship and saying well, we don't want that, 0:16:13.680 --> 0:16:15.360 you know, we want to hear what we you know, 0:16:15.440 --> 0:16:17.880 not what you know what Tony two coach is going 0:16:17.960 --> 0:16:19.880 to bring to this team. You mean, we won't without 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:23.640 coming all you can talk about his Tony. So he 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:26.880 created that enemy where they that concept and not focused 0:16:26.880 --> 0:16:29.760 in the dut with Okay, and you play Croatia, you 0:16:29.920 --> 0:16:34.400 just not You're gonna shut down. The funny thing is 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:37.280 Jordan and cou coach who eventually played on the Bulls, 0:16:39.760 --> 0:16:42.520 became really good friends, much better friends in Jordan and 0:16:42.560 --> 0:16:45.000 Piping Are. They play a lot of golf together and 0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:48.760 even shared victory in that noted event called the Michael 0:16:48.840 --> 0:16:52.760 Jordan's Celebrity Invitational. They also shared many a laugh about 0:16:52.800 --> 0:16:56.600 the coup coach game, harassed unmercifully by both Pippen and 0:16:56.720 --> 0:17:00.160 Jordan's Tony finished with four points and the US one 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:04.679 three to seventy. Now, the splendid team defense played by 0:17:04.760 --> 0:17:07.879 Jordan and Pippen was a subject offered up by several 0:17:07.960 --> 0:17:10.520 Dream teamers in interviews I did for the book Here's 0:17:10.560 --> 0:17:13.280 Larry Bird. The amazing thing for me throughout Home Olympics 0:17:13.480 --> 0:17:17.280 was what Michael. Every team we played, the Gardener point 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:19.760 guard was put the pressure on the point guard. I'm 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:22.320 just sitting there watching them and they would turn in 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:25.359 Scottie or somebody come and the kid would pay him 0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:27.920 and he just told the ball where and we just 0:17:28.040 --> 0:17:30.680 running and and just intercept every past you know, just 0:17:30.840 --> 0:17:32.920 I mean, just the pressure this guy was put on 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:36.160 these kids were just unbelievable. Was there ever a better 0:17:36.240 --> 0:17:40.159 backcourt duo on the defensive end than Jordan and Pippen, 0:17:41.160 --> 0:17:43.800 Jerry Sloane, and Norm Van Leer back with the old Bulls. 0:17:44.359 --> 0:17:47.480 Not quite. Will we ever be talking about Kauahi, Leonard 0:17:47.520 --> 0:17:50.440 and Paul George in that way? I don't think so. 0:17:51.040 --> 0:17:53.080 And when I talked to Pipping about it, his face 0:17:53.240 --> 0:17:56.000 lit up. It was one of the few areas where 0:17:56.040 --> 0:17:58.600 you could make the argument that he was almost as 0:17:58.640 --> 0:18:02.159 good as Jordan's and I would make that argument. Now 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:05.200 Here's Rod Thorne, the NBA executive who was deep on 0:18:05.280 --> 0:18:08.639 the inside of most stream team decisions, talking about how 0:18:08.760 --> 0:18:12.679 much Coach Chuck Daily depended on the two Chicago Bulls 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:15.879 dream teamers coach system coach. As we talk about who 0:18:15.920 --> 0:18:18.920 would start in next game, he would always say, give 0:18:19.000 --> 0:18:22.960 me now. You can never fully divorced Jordan from offense, 0:18:23.040 --> 0:18:26.400 of course, but the primary reason Daily felt that way 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:29.480 was defense. Maybe there would be one game when the 0:18:29.560 --> 0:18:33.119 jump shots weren't falling, Maybe Magic and Bird would be 0:18:33.240 --> 0:18:36.960 looking particularly old. Maybe Ewing and Robinson would get in 0:18:37.040 --> 0:18:40.200 foul trouble. Maybe Charles had been out too late on 0:18:40.240 --> 0:18:42.640 the rhomblists and wasn't quite in the mood that night. 0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:46.400 But Daily knew that Jordan and Pippen would put everyone 0:18:46.560 --> 0:18:49.920 in the defensive vice gript and it just wouldn't matter. 0:18:50.200 --> 0:18:54.399 Nothing else would matter as the games went on, a 0:18:54.440 --> 0:18:58.920 one D eleven sixty eight win over Germany, a eighty 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:01.960 three romp over Brazil. No word on whether or not 0:19:02.119 --> 0:19:04.840 Oscar Schmidt got Bird's autograph, but he did get twenty 0:19:04.880 --> 0:19:08.159 four points. The man could shoot. The focus of the 0:19:08.240 --> 0:19:10.760 dream teamers became more and more what was called the 0:19:10.840 --> 0:19:14.880 family Room in the Ambassador Hotel kids play room by day, 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:18.840 family room in the evening hours, and a cigar smoking beer, 0:19:18.960 --> 0:19:24.439 drinking balls breaking cauldron of testosterone from midnight on. Everyone 0:19:24.520 --> 0:19:26.159 drifted in and out from time to time, but the 0:19:26.200 --> 0:19:31.280 principles were Jordan's magic, Pippen and Barkley with memorable cameos 0:19:31.400 --> 0:19:34.800 from bird Ewing two was part of the in crowd 0:19:34.920 --> 0:19:38.240 on the Ultimate in Crowd team that happened largely because 0:19:38.280 --> 0:19:41.240 of his long history with Jordan's. They first met as 0:19:41.320 --> 0:19:44.359 teenage scholastic stars and they were teammates on the eighty 0:19:44.400 --> 0:19:47.840 four gold medal winning Olympic team and his sudden new 0:19:47.880 --> 0:19:51.520 friendship with Larry bird Ewing the Harry of Larry at 0:19:51.600 --> 0:19:53.760 Harry talks about it. You know I grew up in Boston. 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:55.880 I hated itself because I hated Larry Bird in high 0:19:55.880 --> 0:19:58.600 school and high school. I thought he's stuck. Then I 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:00.479 got to I got to the NB. I call all 0:20:00.520 --> 0:20:02.560 my friends back in Boston. I say, look, you know this, 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:10.280 we were talking this mother. I love that quote. This 0:20:10.480 --> 0:20:13.440 motherfucker is the truth. Ewing, by the way, thinks that 0:20:13.520 --> 0:20:15.800 it was Jordan's who came up with Harry and Larry. 0:20:16.640 --> 0:20:18.840 There's a thousand stories that came out of the room. 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:22.000 One of my favorites is little known. It involves the 0:20:22.080 --> 0:20:25.480 wife of C. M. Newton, one of the USA basketball executives, 0:20:25.840 --> 0:20:29.480 a lifelong college guy who started out reviling the idea 0:20:29.560 --> 0:20:32.359 of prose taking over the Olympics, but ended up a 0:20:32.480 --> 0:20:35.600 dream team convert. I wish I had CM's voice for 0:20:35.680 --> 0:20:37.879 you to hear, but the tape of my interview with 0:20:38.000 --> 0:20:42.040 him is scratchy. Anyway. He describes the afternoon that his wife, Evelyn, 0:20:42.840 --> 0:20:46.119 a very proper wife of a proper man, in an 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:48.760 effort to improve her video game skills to play with 0:20:48.800 --> 0:20:55.240 her grandchildren, sat down and partnered with Patrick Ewing's young nephew, Michael. Predictably, 0:20:55.640 --> 0:20:59.920 Mrs Newton played poorly, and she apologized to Michael, that's okay. 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:03.920 Michael told her we'll get those motherfucker's next time. She 0:21:04.080 --> 0:21:07.159 happily reported to her husband, feeling like now she was 0:21:07.200 --> 0:21:11.199 in the in crowd. Evelyn died in and see Him 0:21:11.280 --> 0:21:14.879 died in two thousand and eighteen. Well, they always had 0:21:14.920 --> 0:21:19.199 the video game in Barcelona. The storylines that evolved from 0:21:19.200 --> 0:21:21.960 the coolest room in the world ran predictably through Jordan's 0:21:22.359 --> 0:21:27.040 his endless, boundless super human energy, his endless appetite for 0:21:27.160 --> 0:21:32.000 ball busting, particularly about championships, and finally the refusal of 0:21:32.080 --> 0:21:34.920 Magic Johnson to accept that Jordan was now king of 0:21:34.960 --> 0:21:37.720 the hill. Here's bird. Michael was the best player in 0:21:37.760 --> 0:21:42.480 our league before that started, I had no problem. You know, 0:21:42.560 --> 0:21:44.360 we had our run. You know I had my run. 0:21:44.480 --> 0:21:46.800 My run was over, and my run was over. A 0:21:46.880 --> 0:21:50.480 couple of years before that, I think Michael ruined aimless 0:21:50.520 --> 0:21:53.719 would itself very well over there. But it was up 0:21:53.720 --> 0:21:57.240 there one night and we're talking. I just said, you 0:21:57.480 --> 0:21:58.600 have you out of your mind if you think you 0:21:58.720 --> 0:22:02.720 still repeat this guy, And there's no there's no way. 0:22:03.400 --> 0:22:05.560 He's by far the best player ear league, even though 0:22:05.600 --> 0:22:08.960 we have great players. Let it go, Man, let it go. 0:22:09.320 --> 0:22:11.560 It was a reprise, of course, of what had started 0:22:11.640 --> 0:22:15.000 with the greatest game nobody ever saw, and Magic finally 0:22:15.080 --> 0:22:17.879 had to admit there was a new sheriff in town. 0:22:18.720 --> 0:22:21.359 It was hard to go at the relentless Jordan. Barkley tried. 0:22:21.880 --> 0:22:25.480 And please remember these are Barkley's words. Oh he's so 0:22:25.720 --> 0:22:28.399 damn black, and he's not the best looking guy in 0:22:28.400 --> 0:22:33.160 the world. And my favorite day, uh sucking women thought 0:22:33.160 --> 0:22:36.840 about Michael Jordan's good looking. Michael Jordan was a fucking pama. 0:22:36.920 --> 0:22:39.320 He wouldn't be good looking any guy I got fired 0:22:39.400 --> 0:22:43.320 at me and don looked good. Repeat these are Barkley's words. 0:22:44.040 --> 0:22:47.919 And here's youing on Jordan's proclivity to talk trash. You know, Michael, 0:22:47.920 --> 0:22:50.200 he's been talking trash from the first day I met him. 0:22:50.359 --> 0:22:53.960 We were both seventeen, visiting North Carolina and he was 0:22:54.000 --> 0:22:56.600 already did he was not the first time I ever 0:22:56.720 --> 0:22:59.480 met him, and he told he was talking trash that day. 0:22:59.800 --> 0:23:03.119 And he is not stuff. He is not stuff. No 0:23:03.280 --> 0:23:07.240 matter who cracked on, who about what, Jordan's always brought 0:23:07.320 --> 0:23:10.560 it back to championships. And remember that he had only 0:23:10.600 --> 0:23:13.240 won two at this point. Four more were to come. 0:23:13.840 --> 0:23:17.280 Bird had three, Magic, the leader in the clubhouse, had five. 0:23:18.000 --> 0:23:20.240 No one else on that team had any, and only 0:23:20.320 --> 0:23:25.080 two other Dream teamers Drexler with the Rockets in and 0:23:25.240 --> 0:23:29.360 David Robinson with the Spurs in n and two thousand three, 0:23:30.040 --> 0:23:33.920 would ever get one. This is Barkley, It always thought, 0:23:35.359 --> 0:23:37.639 cracking on these other good locker room wheel now you 0:23:37.680 --> 0:23:41.159 can always say when you're getting out of this and Michael, 0:23:42.520 --> 0:23:47.080 you know, he's such an asshole. He started cracking on Michael, 0:23:49.520 --> 0:23:52.840 crack on the everybody else you start cracking on him. 0:23:56.320 --> 0:23:58.520 It was that winning thing. Remember what I said, Magic, 0:23:58.640 --> 0:24:01.399 not Jordan's, was the leader at that point so far 0:24:01.480 --> 0:24:05.719 as Championships one, and that led Magic to repeatedly challenged 0:24:05.840 --> 0:24:09.520