Speaker 1: This is The Dream Team Tapes, a Diversion Podcasts original
Speaker 1: series in association with I Heart Radio. This is the
Speaker 1: story of the United States Olympic basketball team that won
Speaker 1: gold in Barcelona, known worldwide as the Dream Team. Well
Speaker 1: we all know what that is and spoiler alert. The
Speaker 1: United States Dream Team won the gold medal in Barcelona,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't as simple as marching to the podium,
Speaker 1: hearing the national anthem and waving to the crowd. They
Speaker 1: did all that, but there was a subplot in between,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to tell you about that at the
Speaker 1: end of this episode seven of the Dream Team Tapes,
Speaker 1: which I'm calling Beva Barcelona because I Jack McCallum had
Speaker 1: three years of high school Spanish. We've been to practices
Speaker 1: in San Diego, to the Gaming tables and the Immortal Scrimmage,
Speaker 1: and Monte Carlo, and now the Dream Team at long
Speaker 1: last is in Barcelona, where the world awaits the epic
Speaker 1: battle between the United States and Angola. Actually we do
Speaker 1: remember that battle, though epicott was not for a reason
Speaker 1: we'll get into later, and which involves, of course, Sir
Speaker 1: Charles Barkley himself. There's much to cover in this episode
Speaker 1: the attention given to the Dream Team, which will be
Speaker 1: the hardest thing to describe. The so called family room
Speaker 1: in the Ambassador Hotel, where the alpha males Jordan, Magic,
Speaker 1: Barkley and Bird played cards all night and argued about
Speaker 1: championship rings, and where Bird's young son Connor used to
Speaker 1: roll poolballs loudly down the stairs toward the lobby. There
Speaker 1: is a frightening intensity with which Jordan and Scottie Pippen
Speaker 1: faced their meeting with croatious Tony ku Coach, who drew
Speaker 1: their collective ire because Bulls general manager Jerry Krauss wanted
Speaker 1: to pay cou Coach a lot of money, which Pippen
Speaker 1: fell was being lifted from his pocket. There is a
Speaker 1: dramatic struggle of the Lithuania team to win the bronze medal.
Speaker 1: The Grateful Dead had helped fund their unlikely path to
Speaker 1: the Olympics, and in the Dream Team book, I called
Speaker 1: Lithuania the tai Died Darlings. Like many others, I still
Speaker 1: have my Lithuania T shirt from those Barcelona games. And finally,
Speaker 1: after the gold medal was secured by the Dream Team,
Speaker 1: we had an unpleasant civil war of sorts between the
Speaker 1: Dream teamers and USA Basketball. All that is coming so
Speaker 1: Barcelona for reasons that escaped me. Thirty years later, David Dupree,
Speaker 1: my closest buddy on the Dream Team, beat the Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame writer from USA today. He and I decided
Speaker 1: to drive from Monte Carlo to Barcelona. This was pre GPS, remember,
Speaker 1: and armed only with an unreadable road map and that
Speaker 1: elementary Spanish, David and I made the seven hour trip
Speaker 1: in a mirror ten hours, narrowly avoiding a wrong turn
Speaker 1: that would have taken us to the Pyrenees Mountains. Credential
Speaker 1: check in at the airport was fairly organized, and I
Speaker 1: said to David, man, this is pretty calm. So when
Speaker 1: David I separated and I got to my hotel, I thought,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe I'll take a stroll over to where
Speaker 1: the Dream Team is staying, which was the newly built
Speaker 1: Ambassador Hotel, which, by the way, much to the horror
Speaker 1: of the U, S O C and USA Basketball, had
Speaker 1: been a large hole in the ground only a year earlier.
Speaker 1: But maybe I'll go over the Ambassador, grab a beer
Speaker 1: with the great NBA pr men Brian McIntyre and Terry Lyons,
Speaker 1: grab a quote or two from Charles or carl and Malone,
Speaker 1: whoever else might be roaming around the lobby. And but
Speaker 1: what in the hell was I thinking? Eighteen months earlier,
Speaker 1: I had seen for the first time what happened the
Speaker 1: crowds that form when we took that photo in Charlotte,
Speaker 1: North Carolina. I had seen opposing teams stop practicing and
Speaker 1: start taking photos when the Dream Team came out. So
Speaker 1: why did I not anticipate the thousands of people who
Speaker 1: surrounded the Ambassador Hotel where the Dream Team had checked
Speaker 1: in several hours earlier. It was chaos, was bedlam, thousands
Speaker 1: of fans, thousands grouped outside the hotel, dozens and dozens
Speaker 1: of police security men in riot gear. The hotel entrance
Speaker 1: was cordoned off, and there were barriers set up all
Speaker 1: over the place, helicopters flying overhead. The metaphor that usually
Speaker 1: came to mind, and the one that was written the most,
Speaker 1: was the mayhem associated with the Beatles first trip to
Speaker 1: America in nineteen I remembered I was there, well, not
Speaker 1: there there in New York City, but I was watching
Speaker 1: on TV. Here's Dick Eversole, then the president of NBC Sports,
Speaker 1: the presenting network of the Olympics. On one explanation of
Speaker 1: the phenomenon, I'm not sure the same thing would have happen.
Speaker 1: Different teams has been here, and they were in Chicago,
Speaker 1: l a New York about this was Europe, which also
Speaker 1: had its own, had its own and had its own
Speaker 1: lower share of basketball, and the gods of basketball and
Speaker 1: get sented l and they never had been there before,
Speaker 1: and this was their chance to touch him. As you
Speaker 1: know better than me, Spain is a huge basketball haven.
Speaker 1: In one respect, this level of attention that I can
Speaker 1: only call pornographics seemed I don't know, less innocent than
Speaker 1: the attention given the mop heads from Liverpool. We were
Speaker 1: well into the age of terrorism. The massacre at the
Speaker 1: two Munich Olympics was never far from the minds of
Speaker 1: NBA security, and I learned later there were snipers with
Speaker 1: oozies in nearby buildings. Two things about this scene. Number One,
Speaker 1: it never changed. I kept waiting for the lines, the acclaim,
Speaker 1: the yelling, the waiting, the anticipation, the longing for the
Speaker 1: dream team. I kept waiting for it to change. It
Speaker 1: never changed, not for two weeks of the Olympics. And
Speaker 1: number two, as far as we know, there were no
Speaker 1: terroristic threats against the Dream Team. It went off without
Speaker 1: a dangerous hitch. The biggest worry for the security people
Speaker 1: was Barkley's insistence that he would not be constrained from
Speaker 1: walking around town, particularly strolling along Los Rumbles in the
Speaker 1: midnight hours. I think of Times Square in the nineteen
Speaker 1: seventies that was Lost Rumbless. Much has been written about that,
Speaker 1: including by me, whose final week story the Olympics was
Speaker 1: about following Barkley around on that fame stretch of Barcelona nightlife.
Speaker 1: I know, not a tough beat, right, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to go into it anymore. Google Barkley and Lost Rumbless
Speaker 1: and he can probably spend the whole day reading later on.
Speaker 1: I did get inside the Ambassador Hotel from time to time.
Speaker 1: I interviewed Magic and Chuck daily. There. I saw the
Speaker 1: players kids running around, peeked into the private players sanked them,
Speaker 1: which in the Dream Team book I referred to as
Speaker 1: the coolest room in the world, which I'll talk about
Speaker 1: soon now. The night after we got to Barcelona, Dupre
Speaker 1: and I went out to dinner with Karl Malone. I
Speaker 1: was surprised the extent to which Carl was not pleased
Speaker 1: about the Fame pickup game in Monte Carlo. He just
Speaker 1: did not like all the jive trash talking, and he
Speaker 1: did not like Magic kind of co opting the team
Speaker 1: as he saw it. Yet, when David and I asked
Speaker 1: about getting a photo of the Dream Team, the mailman
Speaker 1: quickly said, I'll ask Magic. He's our captain. He handles
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. I found it interesting that Malone,
Speaker 1: no fan of Magic, so quickly acknowledged that Magic was
Speaker 1: the boss for that kind of stuff. Now about that
Speaker 1: photo request. On the list of people in the entire
Speaker 1: world who, under normal circumstances would be reluctant to request
Speaker 1: the photo with athletes, I would be second, most likely,
Speaker 1: most likely would be Dave Dupree. Yet he had the idea,
Speaker 1: and I quickly said, okay. It was an indication of
Speaker 1: what that summer of the Dream Team was, like, how
Speaker 1: special it was, how special we knew it would contin
Speaker 1: you to be. We did indeed get that photo taken
Speaker 1: under mortifying circumstances. That story to come the next day.
Speaker 1: Two days before the Dream Team's first Olympic game on July,
Speaker 1: the team members trooped in for one of the most
Speaker 1: entertaining press conferences I've ever attended. For one thing, most
Speaker 1: of the international journalists began applauding as soon as the
Speaker 1: team walked in. That doesn't happen in America, though Donald
Speaker 1: Trump would certainly like it to. Questions were all over
Speaker 1: the place, one of them from a journalist who had
Speaker 1: apparently never seen an NBA game and ask a question
Speaker 1: that can be summarized as sometimes you make a basket
Speaker 1: that's worth two points and sometimes it's worth three, to
Speaker 1: which Carl Malone responded, that's just the way we do it,
Speaker 1: my man. So many times in subsequent years, I'll answer
Speaker 1: an unanswerable question the same way. That's just the way
Speaker 1: we do it, my man. It was out of this
Speaker 1: press conference that one of the most immortal Olympic lines
Speaker 1: was uttered by Charles, the one you heard about Angola.
Speaker 1: The weird thing is, for years, myself and almost everybody
Speaker 1: thought that Charles said, I don't know nothing about Angola,
Speaker 1: but Angola is in trouble. But he didn't. He actually
Speaker 1: used correct English. I don't know anything about Angola, but
Speaker 1: Angola is in trouble. I'm not sure why it was
Speaker 1: so funny, but it was remained so Mike Wilbon, the
Speaker 1: great ESPN commentator, used to call Charles up from time
Speaker 1: to time and just leave a message, I don't know
Speaker 1: nothing about Angola and just left it there. There was
Speaker 1: an alternate theme going on in Barcelona before the Games,
Speaker 1: a theme that contrasted with the devotional manner with which
Speaker 1: the Dream Team was treated by adoring fans who camped
Speaker 1: out outside of the Ambassador Hotel. It was a steam
Speaker 1: these damn millionaires are messing up the Olympics, steam echoed
Speaker 1: by many of the pooh bas in the U s
Speaker 1: o C and a few IOC officials. At first, it's
Speaker 1: entered on, hey, they're not even staying in the athletes village,
Speaker 1: something that had been made clear two years earlier when
Speaker 1: open competition was established. Everybody knew that Michael Jordan's and
Speaker 1: Magic Johnson and Larry Bird ain't going a bunk with nobody,
Speaker 1: and they ain't sharing a communal bathroom. Jordan could have
Speaker 1: bought the entire Olympic Village with the money he laid
Speaker 1: out on a casual nassau bed on the golf course.
Speaker 1: Then word filtered out that most of the Dream Team
Speaker 1: would not attend the opening ceremonies, though several of them
Speaker 1: wanted to, it was thought to be way too chaotic.
Speaker 1: Word got back to NBC Sports president Dick Eversol I've
Speaker 1: referred to him before, who sprung into action and moved
Speaker 1: heaven and earth to deliver the Dream teamers to the
Speaker 1: Olympic gate just minutes before they had to walk in.
Speaker 1: Everybody else had to get there three hours earlier, and
Speaker 1: that was just not going to fly. It was like magic,
Speaker 1: and magic did come, and a fact, if memory serves,
Speaker 1: the only ones who did not were Jordan's who was
Speaker 1: still afraid of potential mauling and who had enjoyed the
Speaker 1: ceremonies back in, and Bird, who was thinking only of
Speaker 1: his back. Now, exactly what everybody feared would happen happened.
Speaker 1: Upon spying the Dream Team in the procession. Athletes from
Speaker 1: all over the place broke ranks ran over to the
Speaker 1: players to take photos, grab autographs, or just genuinely hang on.
Speaker 1: I can still see in my mind's eye a diminutive
Speaker 1: gymnasts from somewhere jumping up to touch Magic and David Robinson.
Speaker 1: It was a splendid scene, and it spoke to this
Speaker 1: reality as much as the dream Team drew attention away
Speaker 1: from the other athletes. Most of them loved it. They
Speaker 1: loved being in the same arena with these guys. It
Speaker 1: was a kind of transfer of importance to it. The
Speaker 1: objections came, for the most part from the executives, the bureaucrats,
Speaker 1: because that's usually where objections come from. Okay, time to
Speaker 1: play Game one, Angola. The hundreds of journalists who had
Speaker 1: come to Portland knew what to expect about the result,
Speaker 1: but there was still an air of anticipation before the game. Actually,
Speaker 1: I made that up. I didn't feel anything, but then
Speaker 1: someone made it interesting. The elbow thrown by Barkley on
Speaker 1: an in Golden player named Herlando Coinbra was so unexpected
Speaker 1: that not many people saw it, and they certainly didn't
Speaker 1: know why it happened. And no, the officials did not
Speaker 1: throw Barkley out. When I interviewed Charles for the book
Speaker 1: in two thousand eleven, he still insisted that Herlando Coinbra,
Speaker 1: the Herlando Coinbra had it coming. That bothered me that
Speaker 1: people didn't understand what happened at night, You know what,
Speaker 1: they started a full brawl like the next game against
Speaker 1: pain Charles Police. Here's Jordan's on the subject of Charles's elbow.
Speaker 1: The only other game that I remember that you know,
Speaker 1: they really did, Barkley, he said, we played here in
Speaker 1: total admiration about autographs before the game, and in the
Speaker 1: first quarter he hit the Grit album. Dude, total adiration
Speaker 1: of everything we did. We killed him that way. I
Speaker 1: don't know. It wasn't even game even him down. You
Speaker 1: guys had to one run. It wasn't when he hit
Speaker 1: the Garedy album that was trying to take atographer beginning
Speaker 1: to game. It's comic relief now, but there was a
Speaker 1: certified big deal then because of this ugly American tag
Speaker 1: that had been attached to the Dream Team in some quarters.
Speaker 1: What happened eventually, though, is that Barkley actually became the
Speaker 1: team's biggest ambassador, not just the teams, the entire United
Speaker 1: States Olympic delegation. He was out in public, he attended events,
Speaker 1: he worked the crowd, he shook hands with other athletes,
Speaker 1: and most of all, as I said before, he became
Speaker 1: a pied piper on law Rombliss well into the morning hours. Now.
Speaker 1: The Dream Team or second game, which was against Croatia,
Speaker 1: was just as memorable, but for an entirely different reason.
Speaker 1: It became widely known as the Ku Coach Game. At
Speaker 1: the time, Bulls general manager Jerry Krauss was so intent
Speaker 1: on signing the young Yugoslavian star Tony ku Coach, who
Speaker 1: was a multi talented six ft ten inch left hander,
Speaker 1: that he had refused to extend Pippin's contract because he
Speaker 1: wanted to save money to offer it to kup Coach,
Speaker 1: whom he had selected in the draft that was not
Speaker 1: going to fly. Pippin, with the help of Jordan's, decided
Speaker 1: they would absolutely destroy Ku Coach, who had no idea
Speaker 1: what was coming and was at any rate distracted by
Speaker 1: the imminent birth of his son, which in fact did
Speaker 1: occur a couple of days after the Ku Coach game.
Speaker 1: There were two things that every single Dream Teamer mentioned
Speaker 1: to me in the separate interviews I did for the book.
Speaker 1: The first was the unlikely Harry and Larry relationship between
Speaker 1: Ewing and Bird. The second was the Coup Coach game.
Speaker 1: Now you have to understand the backdrop to an extent.
Speaker 1: The Dream teamers were tired of non competitive basketball. Their
Speaker 1: lifeblood was competition, and as fun as it was to
Speaker 1: play together with great players. They missed the taste of
Speaker 1: a real challenge. Strong Man though he might have been,
Speaker 1: cou Coach represented a real challenge. Here's magic remembering Jordan
Speaker 1: and Pippen before the Croatia game. But I'd say you,
Speaker 1: Michael and Scott was so ready for the Crocia They
Speaker 1: were like, look, I don't want no help. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: shut them down. And we were like, wow, they are
Speaker 1: so focused and it made us all get focused because
Speaker 1: they really wanted to stopped telling me. And here's Jordan
Speaker 1: himself on the Coup Coach game. We're not gonna have
Speaker 1: to get past, you know for Craft reperies. So much
Speaker 1: credibility hit you know what we've just earned in terms
Speaker 1: of you know, championship and saying well, we don't want that,
Speaker 1: you know, we want to hear what we you know,
Speaker 1: not what you know what Tony two coach is going
Speaker 1: to bring to this team. You mean, we won't without
Speaker 1: coming all you can talk about his Tony. So he
Speaker 1: created that enemy where they that concept and not focused
Speaker 1: in the dut with Okay, and you play Croatia, you
Speaker 1: just not You're gonna shut down. The funny thing is
Speaker 1: Jordan and cou coach who eventually played on the Bulls,
Speaker 1: became really good friends, much better friends in Jordan and
Speaker 1: Piping Are. They play a lot of golf together and
Speaker 1: even shared victory in that noted event called the Michael
Speaker 1: Jordan's Celebrity Invitational. They also shared many a laugh about
Speaker 1: the coup coach game, harassed unmercifully by both Pippen and
Speaker 1: Jordan's Tony finished with four points and the US one
Speaker 1: three to seventy. Now, the splendid team defense played by
Speaker 1: Jordan and Pippen was a subject offered up by several
Speaker 1: Dream teamers in interviews I did for the book Here's
Speaker 1: Larry Bird. The amazing thing for me throughout Home Olympics
Speaker 1: was what Michael. Every team we played, the Gardener point
Speaker 1: guard was put the pressure on the point guard. I'm
Speaker 1: just sitting there watching them and they would turn in
Speaker 1: Scottie or somebody come and the kid would pay him
Speaker 1: and he just told the ball where and we just
Speaker 1: running and and just intercept every past you know, just
Speaker 1: I mean, just the pressure this guy was put on
Speaker 1: these kids were just unbelievable. Was there ever a better
Speaker 1: backcourt duo on the defensive end than Jordan and Pippen,
Speaker 1: Jerry Sloane, and Norm Van Leer back with the old Bulls.
Speaker 1: Not quite. Will we ever be talking about Kauahi, Leonard
Speaker 1: and Paul George in that way? I don't think so.
Speaker 1: And when I talked to Pipping about it, his face
Speaker 1: lit up. It was one of the few areas where
Speaker 1: you could make the argument that he was almost as
Speaker 1: good as Jordan's and I would make that argument. Now
Speaker 1: Here's Rod Thorne, the NBA executive who was deep on
Speaker 1: the inside of most stream team decisions, talking about how
Speaker 1: much Coach Chuck Daily depended on the two Chicago Bulls
Speaker 1: dream teamers coach system coach. As we talk about who
Speaker 1: would start in next game, he would always say, give
Speaker 1: me now. You can never fully divorced Jordan from offense,
Speaker 1: of course, but the primary reason Daily felt that way
Speaker 1: was defense. Maybe there would be one game when the
Speaker 1: jump shots weren't falling, Maybe Magic and Bird would be
Speaker 1: looking particularly old. Maybe Ewing and Robinson would get in
Speaker 1: foul trouble. Maybe Charles had been out too late on
Speaker 1: the rhomblists and wasn't quite in the mood that night.
Speaker 1: But Daily knew that Jordan and Pippen would put everyone
Speaker 1: in the defensive vice gript and it just wouldn't matter.
Speaker 1: Nothing else would matter as the games went on, a
Speaker 1: one D eleven sixty eight win over Germany, a eighty
Speaker 1: three romp over Brazil. No word on whether or not
Speaker 1: Oscar Schmidt got Bird's autograph, but he did get twenty
Speaker 1: four points. The man could shoot. The focus of the
Speaker 1: dream teamers became more and more what was called the
Speaker 1: family Room in the Ambassador Hotel kids play room by day,
Speaker 1: family room in the evening hours, and a cigar smoking beer,
Speaker 1: drinking balls breaking cauldron of testosterone from midnight on. Everyone
Speaker 1: drifted in and out from time to time, but the
Speaker 1: principles were Jordan's magic, Pippen and Barkley with memorable cameos
Speaker 1: from bird Ewing two was part of the in crowd
Speaker 1: on the Ultimate in Crowd team that happened largely because
Speaker 1: of his long history with Jordan's. They first met as
Speaker 1: teenage scholastic stars and they were teammates on the eighty
Speaker 1: four gold medal winning Olympic team and his sudden new
Speaker 1: friendship with Larry bird Ewing the Harry of Larry at
Speaker 1: Harry talks about it. You know I grew up in Boston.
Speaker 1: I hated itself because I hated Larry Bird in high
Speaker 1: school and high school. I thought he's stuck. Then I
Speaker 1: got to I got to the NB. I call all
Speaker 1: my friends back in Boston. I say, look, you know this,
Speaker 1: we were talking this mother. I love that quote. This
Speaker 1: motherfucker is the truth. Ewing, by the way, thinks that
Speaker 1: it was Jordan's who came up with Harry and Larry.
Speaker 1: There's a thousand stories that came out of the room.
Speaker 1: One of my favorites is little known. It involves the
Speaker 1: wife of C. M. Newton, one of the USA basketball executives,
Speaker 1: a lifelong college guy who started out reviling the idea
Speaker 1: of prose taking over the Olympics, but ended up a
Speaker 1: dream team convert. I wish I had CM's voice for
Speaker 1: you to hear, but the tape of my interview with
Speaker 1: him is scratchy. Anyway. He describes the afternoon that his wife, Evelyn,
Speaker 1: a very proper wife of a proper man, in an
Speaker 1: effort to improve her video game skills to play with
Speaker 1: her grandchildren, sat down and partnered with Patrick Ewing's young nephew, Michael. Predictably,
Speaker 1: Mrs Newton played poorly, and she apologized to Michael, that's okay.
Speaker 1: Michael told her we'll get those motherfucker's next time. She
Speaker 1: happily reported to her husband, feeling like now she was
Speaker 1: in the in crowd. Evelyn died in and see Him
Speaker 1: died in two thousand and eighteen. Well, they always had
Speaker 1: the video game in Barcelona. The storylines that evolved from
Speaker 1: the coolest room in the world ran predictably through Jordan's
Speaker 1: his endless, boundless super human energy, his endless appetite for
Speaker 1: ball busting, particularly about championships, and finally the refusal of
Speaker 1: Magic Johnson to accept that Jordan was now king of
Speaker 1: the hill. Here's bird. Michael was the best player in
Speaker 1: our league before that started, I had no problem. You know,
Speaker 1: we had our run. You know I had my run.
Speaker 1: My run was over, and my run was over. A
Speaker 1: couple of years before that, I think Michael ruined aimless
Speaker 1: would itself very well over there. But it was up
Speaker 1: there one night and we're talking. I just said, you
Speaker 1: have you out of your mind if you think you
Speaker 1: still repeat this guy, And there's no there's no way.
Speaker 1: He's by far the best player ear league, even though
Speaker 1: we have great players. Let it go, Man, let it go.
Speaker 1: It was a reprise, of course, of what had started
Speaker 1: with the greatest game nobody ever saw, and Magic finally
Speaker 1: had to admit there was a new sheriff in town.
Speaker 1: It was hard to go at the relentless Jordan. Barkley tried.
Speaker 1: And please remember these are Barkley's words. Oh he's so
Speaker 1: damn black, and he's not the best looking guy in
Speaker 1: the world. And my favorite day, uh sucking women thought
Speaker 1: about Michael Jordan's good looking. Michael Jordan was a fucking pama.
Speaker 1: He wouldn't be good looking any guy I got fired
Speaker 1: at me and don looked good. Repeat these are Barkley's words.
Speaker 1: And here's youing on Jordan's proclivity to talk trash. You know, Michael,
Speaker 1: he's been talking trash from the first day I met him.
Speaker 1: We were both seventeen, visiting North Carolina and he was
Speaker 1: already did he was not the first time I ever
Speaker 1: met him, and he told he was talking trash that day.
Speaker 1: And he is not stuff. He is not stuff. No
Speaker 1: matter who cracked on, who about what, Jordan's always brought
Speaker 1: it back to championships. And remember that he had only
Speaker 1: won two at this point. Four more were to come.
Speaker 1: Bird had three, Magic, the leader in the clubhouse, had five.
Speaker 1: No one else on that team had any, and only
Speaker 1: two other Dream teamers Drexler with the Rockets in and
Speaker 1: David Robinson with the Spurs in n and two thousand three,
Speaker 1: would ever get one. This is Barkley, It always thought,
Speaker 1: cracking on these other good locker room wheel now you
Speaker 1: can always say when you're getting out of this and Michael,
Speaker 1: you know, he's such an asshole. He started cracking on Michael,
Speaker 1: crack on the everybody else you start cracking on him.
Speaker 1: It was that winning thing. Remember what I said, Magic,
Speaker 1: not Jordan's, was the leader at that point so far
Speaker 1: as Championships one, and that led Magic to repeatedly challenged
Speaker 1: Jordan's primacy as the best player in the game. That
Speaker 1: invariably drew Bird into the conversation. And here's Jordan talking
Speaker 1: about birden Magic and who was king of the game
Speaker 1: from a memorable night in the Coolest room in the world.
Speaker 1: Jordan's obvious affection for Bird comes through in this clip.
Speaker 1: The one time I fell that he stood up to
Speaker 1: Magic saying, hey, you just shut up and just you know,
Speaker 1: let's just let let's just rip into the sunset. He
Speaker 1: had well, you know, the mostly lack of everything. I
Speaker 1: never knew even that type of book with the type
Speaker 1: of person, never thought he even laughed and everybody, you know,
Speaker 1: he was pretty honest, really honest about you know how
Speaker 1: you for saw the game and the players at that
Speaker 1: time and taking itself out of you know you allowing
Speaker 1: me and step in and say, okay, you gotta better
Speaker 1: than we are. You know you better if you better
Speaker 1: of defense he gave out. Those types would magic with. Now.
Speaker 1: The one area where magic never challenged Jordan's was in
Speaker 1: the area of energy expended. I could do an hour
Speaker 1: podcast on Dream Team teammates talking about Jordan's super human
Speaker 1: RoboCop million Dollar Man level of energy. Remember that the
Speaker 1: Dream Team always played the late game, so on game nights,
Speaker 1: they never got back to the hotel until well after midnight,
Speaker 1: at which point the card game began. Well play all
Speaker 1: the way to almost six in the morning. See, I'm
Speaker 1: in it, so nobody can tell me I'm in it
Speaker 1: with this man. He would go upstairs, stay for our
Speaker 1: our half. He would meet you whoever he was going
Speaker 1: to play golf with. They go out at eight o'clock. Now,
Speaker 1: we've just left at six. He would go play they
Speaker 1: say eighteen holes sometimes even more. Come back taking that
Speaker 1: for two hours. We are we get on the but
Speaker 1: go play the game and didn't do the same thing
Speaker 1: Nick make And then I was telling him, Man, I'm
Speaker 1: getting tired because I was not used to this. Right. No,
Speaker 1: j you can't go to sleep, I was saying, Man.
Speaker 1: So I said, man, you are unbelievable to be able
Speaker 1: to and then go get twenty points in the act.
Speaker 1: Of course, it was nothing like I was like wow.
Speaker 1: When I'm I was speaking to groups and I tell
Speaker 1: them these stories, they be like, wow, they can't believable.
Speaker 1: The one time Jordan's hardly get any sleep at all
Speaker 1: routine really freaked out Chuck Daily was before the Lithuania game,
Speaker 1: the semifinal game. Daily really respected Lithuania's two best players,
Speaker 1: r Vitas Sabonis and Sharonus Marshal Lonis, and Jordan had
Speaker 1: gotten very little sleep and had played golf on game day. Well,
Speaker 1: then again, his playing partner had been Daily, so really,
Speaker 1: how much could the coach complain The final score that
Speaker 1: Lithuanian game, a hundred and twenty seven to seventy six,
Speaker 1: was probably the dream Team's most devastating performance. Daily managed
Speaker 1: to get everyone substantial minutes. Nine Dream teamers had ten
Speaker 1: or more points, led by Jordan's with twenty one, but
Speaker 1: his scoring wasn't the main thing. At one point in
Speaker 1: the first half, Daily told Jordan to really go after
Speaker 1: Martial Alonis, not let him get the ball, disrupt the
Speaker 1: Lithuania offense, and turn this thing into a route so
Speaker 1: everybody could relax and he could put a lot of
Speaker 1: players in the game. That's what Jordan did, and for
Speaker 1: years later Chuck used to talk about it. I really
Speaker 1: wish I had his voice saying it, but I don't.
Speaker 1: But here's what he said. For six minutes, Michael did
Speaker 1: not let Marcia Alonis get the ball. He couldn't even
Speaker 1: get the damn ball. I heard that over and over
Speaker 1: from Chuck. Every time I saw him, I would deliberately
Speaker 1: bring up the Lithuania game. He wouldn't even let him
Speaker 1: get the damn ball. Now, this seems like a great
Speaker 1: time to talk about Lithuania, which could be the subject
Speaker 1: of a podcast series on its own. Memo to self
Speaker 1: look into that. Actually, Lithuania was the subject of a
Speaker 1: great documentary called The Other Dream Team try to check
Speaker 1: it out. In the briefest terms, the Lithuania team, like
Speaker 1: your high school band or your local cub Scout troupe,
Speaker 1: had to raise money to even qualify. The country was
Speaker 1: ravaged by a Soviet invasion just weeks before the Lithuanian
Speaker 1: team had to begin qualifying for the Olympics. Yes, there
Speaker 1: were great players in the country who had formally played
Speaker 1: for the national team, particularly Sabonis and Martialonis, but this
Speaker 1: was another level of pluck and determination. The team was
Speaker 1: coached by Donnie Nelson's son of don who we know
Speaker 1: eternally as Nellie and Donnie never got a penny for
Speaker 1: coaching Lithuania, and he understandably choked up by his association
Speaker 1: with these guys. There was something going on here that
Speaker 1: was deeper. You know. I almost felt like I really
Speaker 1: felt like I was in this time capsule and instead
Speaker 1: of you know, George Washington and Tallar Beer, and I
Speaker 1: really felt like, you know, I grew up in Boston,
Speaker 1: so I knew all the history, all that kind of stuff, right,
Speaker 1: always felt like this little republic was doing the same
Speaker 1: thing that the Moldies did or whatever year Marshallonis was
Speaker 1: By the time of the ninety two Olympics, solidly entrenched
Speaker 1: as an NBA player for the Golden State Warriors, coach
Speaker 1: by Nellie. The Warriors beat writer at the time, the
Speaker 1: late great George Shirk, wrote a peace about how Nellie Jr.
Speaker 1: And Sharonas were going around collecting a hundred bucks. Two
Speaker 1: hundred bucks is shot by making speeches. Now the grateful
Speaker 1: Dead manager read it and said, yeah, man, we can
Speaker 1: plug into this. We're like into peace and freedom. I'm
Speaker 1: paraphrasing here. Now. The memories of Nellie Jr. And Marshallonus
Speaker 1: diverge on this point as to when they actually met
Speaker 1: the Dead. Nelly said it was in San Francisco. Sharuna
Speaker 1: says it was at a concert in Detroit. But their
Speaker 1: memories of the let's call it the ambiance was exactly
Speaker 1: the same. You went to have a Dead concert in
Speaker 1: To see that, you have to see the Rex Foundation guy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know whether you could understand or not. But
Speaker 1: Sharuna said there was an interesting smell. I'm sure there was. Now.
Speaker 1: The Dead never gave as much money to the Lithuanian
Speaker 1: team as was advertised, maybe a couple of grand but
Speaker 1: they did give proceeds of the sales of the distinctive
Speaker 1: TIEDI Dead Skeleton logo t shirts, and it was the
Speaker 1: prize souvenir from the ninety two Olympics. I think I
Speaker 1: mentioned this earlier. I still have mine. The Lithuanians war
Speaker 1: it on their warm ups, coolest warmups ever. Several hours
Speaker 1: before the US played for the gold medal against Croatia,
Speaker 1: the absolute best game of the basketball tournament took place
Speaker 1: Lithuania's bronze medal game against the Unified team, which was
Speaker 1: basically the Russian national team. Lithuania playing against the representative
Speaker 1: of a country that had sent tanks into its streets
Speaker 1: a year earlier. It was incredible, as was the game
Speaker 1: Lithuania eight Serunus and Sabonis were monsters with twenty nine
Speaker 1: and twenty seven points respectively. Nobody that I ever saw
Speaker 1: played harder than those two played in that game. And
Speaker 1: I will never forget something Marciallonis told me when I
Speaker 1: interviewed him for the Dream Team book in two thousand
Speaker 1: and eleven. I wish I had his voice on tape
Speaker 1: for it, but I don't. He said that he remembers
Speaker 1: showering after the game and not really being able to
Speaker 1: enjoy the moment. Here's my pression of what he said.
Speaker 1: The thought that we could have lost that game was
Speaker 1: stronger than the thrill that we had won it. Wow.
Speaker 1: The United States never had those kind of stakes when
Speaker 1: they went into a basketball game. Okay, at last, the
Speaker 1: gold medal game for the Dream Team Croatia. It wasn't
Speaker 1: another coup coach game. To be quite honest, it wasn't
Speaker 1: much of anything, none of the usual gold medal tension.
Speaker 1: The US was gonna win. There was only one bit
Speaker 1: of suspense. It had nothing to do with the game.
Speaker 1: But before we go there, remember I told you about
Speaker 1: this photo request that had been made through Karl Malone.
Speaker 1: David and I had heard nothing about it and it
Speaker 1: was all but forgotten, which was fine with me. But suddenly,
Speaker 1: before the damn gold medal game, NBA photographer Andy Bernstein
Speaker 1: approaches Dupre and me and says, Hey, we're gonna take
Speaker 1: a phoe to of you guys when they come out. Now,
Speaker 1: both Dupri and I say, so we get these special passes.
Speaker 1: Hurriedly go back meet the Dream Team as they're coming
Speaker 1: out for the gold medal game. The shout, so let's
Speaker 1: go let's get it done. When all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: Magic says, hold up, guys, and nobody knows what the
Speaker 1: hell is going on, and Dave and I creep into
Speaker 1: place and Aye aimess camera, and from the back row
Speaker 1: I hear Bird make an X rated joking comment, good God,
Speaker 1: and then they move on. Just another night, with another
Speaker 1: photo with another couple of shlubs. I still have the picture,
Speaker 1: along with an embarrassed grin. I'm wearing shorts and some
Speaker 1: kind of Hawaiian print shirt and look like I'm heading
Speaker 1: for a barbecue where they're gonna be playing Jimmy Buffett
Speaker 1: all night. The photo isn't much, but I still have
Speaker 1: birds joking comment ringing in my ears. And I used
Speaker 1: the line early in the Dream Team book. Years later
Speaker 1: I brought it up to him and he says he
Speaker 1: doesn't remember saying it, Just another well aimed insult in
Speaker 1: a long line of them. The USB Croatia for the
Speaker 1: gold one s Jordan was great, but no greater than
Speaker 1: draz And Petrovich, the Croatian guard who finished with a
Speaker 1: game high twenty four points. Petrovich, he was the Magic
Speaker 1: Johnson of Yugoslavia, possibly the Magic Johnson of all of Europe.
Speaker 1: He was great. It was fun to watch. He was combative,
Speaker 1: he was cocky. I loved him. And on June seven,
Speaker 1: about ten months after he won silver for Croatia in
Speaker 1: the Barcelona Olympics, he was dead. Petrovisch was a front
Speaker 1: seat passenger in a car driven by his girlfriend when
Speaker 1: it plowed into the back of a truck on a
Speaker 1: rain drent section of the auto Bahn in Bavaria. He
Speaker 1: was killed instantly. He was twenty eight. One hundred thousand
Speaker 1: people attended his funeral in Zagreb. One hundred thousand. Now
Speaker 1: it was never ever a podium ceremony like the one
Speaker 1: for basketball in bar Salona. In It wasn't as iconic,
Speaker 1: and it really wasn't as important as the one in
Speaker 1: Mexico City in n when Tommy Smith and John Carlos
Speaker 1: held up black glove fist to signify their protests against
Speaker 1: racism in America. But it was strange. First out came
Speaker 1: the Lithuanians wearing their tie dyed warmups in clear violation
Speaker 1: of Olympic podium rules. They were told no tide eyes,
Speaker 1: only official podium where to which marsh Loanas, the captain,
Speaker 1: basically said fu or however, you say that in Lithuanian
Speaker 1: the dead believed in us when we were nobody. He said,
Speaker 1: the friend of the devil is a friend of mine.
Speaker 1: Man you thought would get out of here without a
Speaker 1: dead lyric Croatia came out overjoyed with the silver medal.
Speaker 1: And then it was the Dream Team, three of whom
Speaker 1: came out with American flags draped around their shoulder the
Speaker 1: TV commentator's notice, but on a sleep. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: how many in the crowd did. This had been brewing
Speaker 1: for a while. Were the Dream teamers affiliated with Nike
Speaker 1: going to wear the U s o C mandated Reebok
Speaker 1: podium jackets. Incredibly, the issue had not been settled, even
Speaker 1: though it had been talked about for days and days.
Speaker 1: Here's Jordan's look. You know, I don't want to be
Speaker 1: a partis to Rebok experiences. I have all business. I've
Speaker 1: been tied and is it disrespected? Might be? They said,
Speaker 1: don't worry about it. You figured that out time. And
Speaker 1: then it comes win a gold mel and they come
Speaker 1: in and says, you guys got ready uniforms. If you
Speaker 1: don't wear the uniforms you came podium, I'm saying that's
Speaker 1: not because no, I don't know. I'm saying that the podium.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm just in America, you know, because I
Speaker 1: see business bigger than the experience of being he was
Speaker 1: staying up there and win the gold medal, which is
Speaker 1: I never wanted to be put in that position, which
Speaker 1: is one of the reasons why I initially said to
Speaker 1: you to day Gavid into the rock, into all the
Speaker 1: guys that you know, this is not gonna work because
Speaker 1: of the business of this, cot into this and I
Speaker 1: don't only disrespect up and he got what's happening with,
Speaker 1: you know, with the U s o C. They assured
Speaker 1: me that that was not going to be an issue.
Speaker 1: At least three different people tell me it was their
Speaker 1: idea to get flags to drape over the shoulders of
Speaker 1: the players to hide the Reebok logo. Jordan's said it
Speaker 1: was his. He asked Tom McGrath, the USA basketball official,
Speaker 1: to get a few flags from the stands. Tom did.
Speaker 1: Whose idea was it, I don't know, and who cares anymore.
Speaker 1: The disagreement was petty and the players took some crap
Speaker 1: for it, but really was the U s o C.
Speaker 1: Any Less to blame. The Reebok warm up jacket was
Speaker 1: a business transaction for them, just as Jordan's loyally to Nike,
Speaker 1: which had been ongoing for eight years by then, was
Speaker 1: a business transaction. There were no virgins in a fair podium,
Speaker 1: But who came out looking to those who even noticed
Speaker 1: Jordan's Magic and Barkley, who were the three players who
Speaker 1: wore the flags? Why look how patriotic these guys are.
Speaker 1: They're wearing the American flag. There were some moments I
Speaker 1: remember about the podium. The national anthem, a tear coming
Speaker 1: from the eye of Chuck Daly, who always always stayed
Speaker 1: in the background, Harry and Larry ewing and Bird exchanging
Speaker 1: high fives, Barkley blowing kisses, Malone putting his arm around
Speaker 1: Clyde Drexler, Jordan and Clyde mortal enemies under normal circumstances,
Speaker 1: chatting and pointing into the crowd. And Magic Johnson, a
Speaker 1: man who was supposed to be dead, pumping his right fist,
Speaker 1: then his left fist, then taking Barkley in his arms,
Speaker 1: and then it was over. The Dream teamers want to
Speaker 1: plane back home within ninety minutes of winning goal. As
Speaker 1: I wrote in Dream Team the lights dimmed, the Palo
Speaker 1: Municipal emptied workers picked up trash, and it was like
Speaker 1: the day after your birthday, when the world seemed a
Speaker 1: little less bright. The fine edges of joy scrub flat.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't the end of the story, not by
Speaker 1: any means. Reverberations about the Dream Team continued back in America,
Speaker 1: and to an extent they continue today. I'll talk about
Speaker 1: that in the eighth and final episode of The Dream
Speaker 1: Team Tapes. Thanks for listening. 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 tone.
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.