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. Welcome
Speaker 1: to episode five of the Dream Team Tapes. I'm Jack McCallum.
Speaker 1: We have moved from San Diego, where the Dream Team
Speaker 1: completed a week of practice, and on to Portland, Oregon,
Speaker 1: for something called the Tournament of the Americas, where the
Speaker 1: US team had to qualify for the Olympics. Portland was
Speaker 1: the capital of the basketball world in the summer of
Speaker 1: their beloved Blazers took the Jordan's Bulls to six games.
Speaker 1: The NBA Draft that produced Shaquille O'Neal and Christian Latner,
Speaker 1: the two college stars who were the only players considered
Speaker 1: to join the Dream Team from college, was held there
Speaker 1: ten days after the finals ended, and then the Dream
Speaker 1: Team arrived for their first official public demonstration of well
Speaker 1: worldwide dominance. I would venture to say that all of
Speaker 1: us who were around for the weeks of action in
Speaker 1: Portland had a great time in that great city. It
Speaker 1: was an excellent series. It included the famous Jordan's shrug
Speaker 1: game in Chicago, when he hit six first half three pointers,
Speaker 1: the majority of them on Clyde Drexler, and at one
Speaker 1: point just shrugged the Magic Johnson, who was courtside on
Speaker 1: the broadcast team, as if to say, hell, I can't
Speaker 1: explain it either. The draft was pretty interesting too. After
Speaker 1: the Minnesota Timberwolves selected late number three, there was a
Speaker 1: chorus of booze, which prompted Laterner's mother, Bonnie, a sometimes
Speaker 1: outspoken woman who like so many moms, loved her son
Speaker 1: and wanted to protect him, blurted out to the press,
Speaker 1: huh that was the fifty family and friends Shakiel took
Speaker 1: with him to Portland. Christian wasn't happy with her. Hey,
Speaker 1: we've all been there at one time or another. All
Speaker 1: other things about Portland's It had one of the great
Speaker 1: all time bookstores, Pals and the peaceful Willamet River, and
Speaker 1: one of the all time great bars, the veritable Quandre
Speaker 1: hang out for the media who had covered the NBA
Speaker 1: Finals and hung around to cover the Dream Team. You
Speaker 1: went into the VQ, you ordered a craft beer, and
Speaker 1: the bartenders would put on anything you asked. For one night,
Speaker 1: it was Stevie Ray Vaughan. One of the overlooked blues immortals.
Speaker 1: Stevie Ray has gone now a helicopter crash in Wisconsin
Speaker 1: in n hours after he and his band had opened
Speaker 1: a show for Eric Clapton and a loss. So is
Speaker 1: the veritable quandary, a victim of market forces. Nihil st
Speaker 1: at tarranum, nothing last forever. I'm not sure what a
Speaker 1: Latin accent should sound like, but that was probably not
Speaker 1: a good one. So why were we in Portland? Well,
Speaker 1: as I said earlier, the Americans had to qualify since
Speaker 1: they had finished third in and the qualifier been scheduled
Speaker 1: for March in Brazil, in other words, at a time
Speaker 1: when the NBA season was still going on. So the
Speaker 1: NBA and USA Basketball arm twisted FIBA into a schedule
Speaker 1: change and bought the broadcast rights for somewhere around four
Speaker 1: million dollars from a Brazilian who owned them and re
Speaker 1: christened the thing the Tournament of the Americas. Now. The
Speaker 1: money for the broadcast was put up by the United
Speaker 1: States Olympic Committee, which had a surplus from the Olympics
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles, which was quite possibly the last games
Speaker 1: that made economic sense for a host country. The U
Speaker 1: s O c resented it. They were not accustomed to
Speaker 1: putting up money for millionaire professional athletes, and that resentment
Speaker 1: would prove to be a subplot in Portland's that would
Speaker 1: continue through Barcelona because initially, all I say that, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't want to be a part of this whole business.
Speaker 1: You know, I played a game for the game, for
Speaker 1: the batch you had that was totally against profession basketball
Speaker 1: to was playing because I knew the business despect there
Speaker 1: was coming around. Yeah, and it is hard to get
Speaker 1: the true deliberic experience and you're sitting there were about
Speaker 1: everybody's making money and you gotta you know, you gotta
Speaker 1: please this guy, you know, please his company. Yet it
Speaker 1: may not be the same line to what a contract. Okay,
Speaker 1: irony alert here Jordan, who at that time was earning
Speaker 1: about thirty five million dollars in endorsements and is still,
Speaker 1: by the way, earning about a hundred and forty five
Speaker 1: million dollars even though he hasn't played since two thousand
Speaker 1: and three, talking about the unpleasantness of mixing business and basketball.
Speaker 1: But Jordan's and most of the other Dream teamers felt
Speaker 1: for the first time in Portland's how many fingers were
Speaker 1: reaching into the pie, and Jordan's didn't really need the
Speaker 1: Olympics for exposure the way other players might have. It's
Speaker 1: not like his profile wasn't amplified by the Dream Team experience,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't a major consideration. Here's David Falk, Jordan's
Speaker 1: Asian at the time, and the and largely responsible for
Speaker 1: creating the Jordan's marketing monster back in you know, gave
Speaker 1: him a broader stage and probably set the tone maybe
Speaker 1: for moving into other markets, you know, brand Jordan's later
Speaker 1: on down the road. But he didn't do it for
Speaker 1: marketing reasons. I think they've even enter to the egration.
Speaker 1: I knew that it would have a you know, positive impact,
Speaker 1: but not a not a major impact. For months, there
Speaker 1: had been pitched, behind the scenes battles among sponsors and
Speaker 1: retailers trying to make official deals with the NBA to
Speaker 1: make money off these guys. And these weren't exactly junior
Speaker 1: varsity companies. They were companies like A T and T,
Speaker 1: Coca Cola, McDonald's, and Visa. The stakes were enormously high.
Speaker 1: The real battles took place over whose likeness could be
Speaker 1: put on what product. Remember that all these guys, but Jordan's, Magic,
Speaker 1: Barkley and Bird in particular, had all kinds of endorsement
Speaker 1: deals and contracts themselves. What would they be violating by
Speaker 1: wearing or endorsed s a uso C sanctioned product that
Speaker 1: was in competition with one of their personal sponsors? To wit,
Speaker 1: what Jordan's Mr Nike tacitly endorsed reebak Ah. Jordan and
Speaker 1: his agent David Falk thought they had a deal worked
Speaker 1: out that would take care of it. But the deal,
Speaker 1: in the immortal words of William Goldman, the great Hollywood screenwriter,
Speaker 1: was apparently set, just not set set. We'll see how
Speaker 1: that plays out. In Barcelona, the players were astounded at
Speaker 1: what their responsibilities were, particularly in the area of signing basketballs.
Speaker 1: A couple of them told me they signed literally thousands
Speaker 1: of balls because each deal seemed to come accompanied by
Speaker 1: signing basketballs, which always struck me as crazy because if
Speaker 1: you've seen a pro athletes sign at least most of them,
Speaker 1: you can't make out their signature from ancient sanskript. Here
Speaker 1: is Steve Mills on how bad the situation actually was.
Speaker 1: At that time. He was working for the league and
Speaker 1: was in charge of special events for the Dream Team
Speaker 1: and was a close confident of many of the players.
Speaker 1: The biggest that actually remember that I think almost blew
Speaker 1: up the team was the issue was sort of the
Speaker 1: literal actual with the usc UM and was the first
Speaker 1: time when there's same there as a woman I believe
Speaker 1: who who was an act was an actuate but at
Speaker 1: a different sport. It was one of the U s
Speaker 1: C at the time, and came in and talked to
Speaker 1: the players their marketing obligations and the things they couldn't
Speaker 1: do and the thing they could do. And here's Barkley
Speaker 1: on the same subject. Was they got angry at h Hey,
Speaker 1: we came here, We're not getting any money. And you know,
Speaker 1: Clil Michael is the man at that point as far
Speaker 1: as endorth a Golden night, and we have a meeting
Speaker 1: and a couple of representative like coming him like, hey,
Speaker 1: don't be an asshole, like you know how Michael, excuse me. See,
Speaker 1: the Dream teamers were supposed to get some kind of
Speaker 1: share of all the revenue pie and a playing salary,
Speaker 1: something that added up to around seventy five dollars to
Speaker 1: the best of anyone's memory. In other words, pocket change,
Speaker 1: but hey, pocket change his pocket change. I tore my
Speaker 1: car apart the other day looking for seventy eight cents.
Speaker 1: But in step the ultimate diplomat, Dave Gabbett, who himself
Speaker 1: had been armed twisted to get the players to give
Speaker 1: up that money for the good of the country and
Speaker 1: the coffers of USA basketball. Here's Larry Bird. Dave came
Speaker 1: to me with the idea and get out of here,
Speaker 1: you're crazy. Just more Bertie, and went through the whole fame,
Speaker 1: and he talked to Magic. Of course Magic Sill's Larry
Speaker 1: doing it. And he went to Michael, Michael, I'm in,
Speaker 1: and he went the other guys, and Day came to
Speaker 1: me today, we're okay, enough enough, let's it away from
Speaker 1: business and talk about what else was going on in Portland.
Speaker 1: A great introductory party by Nike for one thing. I
Speaker 1: brought along my wife and two sons who were fifteen
Speaker 1: and twelve, a great fan age, and introduced them around
Speaker 1: to the point that I wasn't being an ass and
Speaker 1: as usual, got the best response from Charles Barkley. You
Speaker 1: seem like nice boys, Barkley said, putting his arm around him.
Speaker 1: So with a father like you have, I would run
Speaker 1: away right now. One of the subplots was how nice
Speaker 1: this was for Clyde Drexler, who was among the last
Speaker 1: two Dream teamers picked and was only a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks removed from getting tortured by Jordan in the finals.
Speaker 1: No matter how much he hated it, and he hated it,
Speaker 1: Clyde could never quite get passed being the poor man's
Speaker 1: Michael Jordan's and his team could never quite get past
Speaker 1: being talented but not a closer. It had started in
Speaker 1: the ninets against the Pistons and was solidified by the
Speaker 1: six game lost to the Bulls in ninety two, and
Speaker 1: direct Or took endless amounts of crap from his fellow
Speaker 1: Dream teamers. Here's Bird, I feel sorry for him some
Speaker 1: days in the basket sort of telling played on the
Speaker 1: Dumas team. Still, the team was tight. Relationships were starting
Speaker 1: to build, the most unlikely being a friendship between Bird
Speaker 1: and Patrick Ewing. They were together so much that the
Speaker 1: team started calling Ewing Harry so they could brand them
Speaker 1: Harry and Larry. In every single interview I did for
Speaker 1: the Dream Team. Somebody brought this up. The players got
Speaker 1: such a kick out of it. It was in Portland,
Speaker 1: also that the real Alpha Dog started a late night
Speaker 1: ritual of a card game called Tunk, which Barkley described
Speaker 1: as an old Negro game from the South. The main
Speaker 1: players were Barkley, Jordan's Magic, and Pipping. So if there's
Speaker 1: any Tonk fans out there, just think how great it
Speaker 1: would have been to get in that game. Then again,
Speaker 1: you would have needed to bring money, lots of money.
Speaker 1: In the dream Team second game, in the Tournament of
Speaker 1: the America's Stockton and Michael Jordan collided on a defensive sequence,
Speaker 1: and though not many people saw it, Stockton came away
Speaker 1: with an undisplaced fracture of the right fibula. Most everybody
Speaker 1: else thought, well, so what, Stockton's great, but the Dream
Speaker 1: Team hardly needs him. But Chuck Daily, the Prince of Pessimism,
Speaker 1: who was already imagining if he would have to appear
Speaker 1: before Congress the Dream Team lost a game, was worried
Speaker 1: about the point guard position. Chuck honestly wasn't sure that
Speaker 1: Magic could handle the load alone, particularly defensively ridiculous in
Speaker 1: retrospective course, But and more, much more than was made public,
Speaker 1: Chuck really thought that Stockton should be replaced. Just got
Speaker 1: the actually down to eating us. He brought baplace. Daily
Speaker 1: was even a little pissed at Stockton because he clung
Speaker 1: to his spot. So Chuck convened a meeting. Okay, at
Speaker 1: dinner meeting at a great Italian restaurant in Portland. Matt Dobek,
Speaker 1: his trusted public relations man, was there, and so was
Speaker 1: assistant p J. Car Lessimo, who was in charge of restaurants.
Speaker 1: P J was still is one of basketball's great restaurant guys.
Speaker 1: You gotta have guys that know every great restaurant, No,
Speaker 1: every owner and major d at every great restaurant. Anyway,
Speaker 1: the subject of the meeting was should we replace Stockton?
Speaker 1: And if we decide we should, who are you going
Speaker 1: to call? Here's the late Matt Dobek can make it work.
Speaker 1: We're going to call Joe. How in case you didn't
Speaker 1: get it, that Joe was Joe Dumars. So there it
Speaker 1: was the specter of Isaiah Thomas all over again. Daily
Speaker 1: could not get out from under it. And the best
Speaker 1: guest from Matt, and he told me this before he died,
Speaker 1: was that Chuck would have given the call to Joe Dumars,
Speaker 1: not Isaiah Thomas Jordan for one was watching these developments
Speaker 1: with interest and some degree of ankst. When doctor now,
Speaker 1: I'm already committed ship. You know, I checked into the
Speaker 1: saying anything to you know, idea, you're gonna keep it
Speaker 1: the way it wants to take. But he came to
Speaker 1: do so, he had to leave it. He had to
Speaker 1: keep stocking on the team even when it broke legs
Speaker 1: to the place. Eventually, Chuck decided to let it go,
Speaker 1: take the time until Barcelona for Stockton to get better,
Speaker 1: And I was glad. I love Dumars as a player,
Speaker 1: as a person too, but I'm glad it didn't happen.
Speaker 1: That would have just been too cruel. Isaiah passed over
Speaker 1: not once, but twice, and for a teammate who really
Speaker 1: wasn't even a point guard. And for Chuck it was
Speaker 1: actually better from a playing time standpoint. Since Bird's back
Speaker 1: was hurting so bad and there were always other assorted injuries,
Speaker 1: not having stocked and available at all made it easier
Speaker 1: on daily to slide players in and out. One more
Speaker 1: thing about Isaiah, we never got along all that great.
Speaker 1: He was one of the few people who turned down
Speaker 1: an interview requests for the Dream Team book. He told
Speaker 1: me not long ago at a Hall of Fame gathering
Speaker 1: that he thought I had never treated him or the
Speaker 1: Pistons fairly in print, but then he shook my hand.
Speaker 1: I respected him for that, and I respected the way
Speaker 1: he handled the Dream Team snub. One of the things
Speaker 1: he did around the time of the selection process was
Speaker 1: called John Stockton's father. Here is Stockton talking about it.
Speaker 1: I think I should have been and I was the
Speaker 1: clear artt I guess you know what people thought. He
Speaker 1: knit And in case you didn't get it, at the end,
Speaker 1: there John said, and he called my dad. That means
Speaker 1: Isaiah Thomas called up John Stockton's father. And when Stockton
Speaker 1: was inducted into the Hall of Fame, incidentally, the player
Speaker 1: he chose to walk up with him to the stage
Speaker 1: was one Isaiah Thomas. Okay, is there anything else I've
Speaker 1: forgotten about Portland'? Oh? Yes. There were actually other teams there,
Speaker 1: and there were basketball games. For the record, these were
Speaker 1: the other competitors, in order of how they finished behind
Speaker 1: the US were Venezuela, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Canada, Argentina, Mexico, Panama, Cuba,
Speaker 1: and Uruguay. It was a gas interacting with the players
Speaker 1: on the other teams from the beginning. They just seemed
Speaker 1: to get it. They just understood that they were fodder
Speaker 1: for the Dream Team stand ins, second bananas, and they
Speaker 1: were fine with it. They embraced it. They understood that
Speaker 1: when the US played, it was less like a traditional
Speaker 1: athletic competition and more like free form theater with a
Speaker 1: set ending. You were going to get your ass kicked,
Speaker 1: but let's do some improv along the way that we
Speaker 1: know why we're here. Attitude was best exemplified by Oscar
Speaker 1: Schmidt of Brazil. You have to understand this, Oscar was
Speaker 1: a legit player. He was the best player in the
Speaker 1: tournament not on the Dream Team, and at one point
Speaker 1: in his career several years earlier, many scouts believe that
Speaker 1: he was a legit NBA prospect. And here was Oscar
Speaker 1: talking before the game, and well, let's called his goals
Speaker 1: for the Tournament of the Americas. For Larry Party is
Speaker 1: my idold Michael Jordan, Jason Solder, I would like to
Speaker 1: have all their age. What a rallying cry. Let's go
Speaker 1: get their autographs. But look, we got it, we got
Speaker 1: it back then. You weren't going to beat the Dream Team,
Speaker 1: So go with the flow, enjoy the experience. I know
Speaker 1: I did. The one moment that I remember more than
Speaker 1: all others in that summer was the first time the
Speaker 1: Dream Team ran out together before the first game. It
Speaker 1: was hard to explain then, it's kind of hard to
Speaker 1: explain now, but everybody I talked to says the same thing.
Speaker 1: Dick Ever Saw, the president of NBC Sports back then,
Speaker 1: was sitting in the stay ends with David Stern, and
Speaker 1: he told me years later that he had chills. I
Speaker 1: remember looking in the stands and locating my sons and thinking, well,
Speaker 1: whatever they will later hold against me, and let's not
Speaker 1: go there. At least I got them to this. We
Speaker 1: were all curious who would come out first, who would
Speaker 1: carry the flag, who would be in that first starting lineup,
Speaker 1: And don't think the players didn't think about it. Also,
Speaker 1: here's Larry Bird, Scotty's will start. You know, it didn't
Speaker 1: matter Mary started that first game. Yeah, that matter doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: And as probably the Vegas line would have had it,
Speaker 1: Magic came out first carrying the flag. Bird was second
Speaker 1: in line, and when they hit the floor, the Cuban
Speaker 1: team stopped practicing and lined up to stare and take photos.
Speaker 1: As with Oscar Schmidt, their goal was not so much
Speaker 1: to play the game, but to say that they were there.
Speaker 1: And so the next step for the Dream Team was
Speaker 1: a trip to Monte Carlo before the Olympics. Hey, that's
Speaker 1: where everyone goes to get in some grunt work, right
Speaker 1: Monte Carlo. See you next time, when I'll give you
Speaker 1: the deets behind the Immortal inter Squad Scrimmage, the greatest
Speaker 1: game nobody ever saw. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed
Speaker 1: The Dream Team Tapes, please follow, rate, and review wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. The Dream Team Tapes is written
Speaker 1: and hosted by Jack McCallum. Executive producers Mark Francis and
Speaker 1: Scott Waxman, Executive producer for I Heart Media, is shown
Speaker 1: to turn. The Dream Team Tapes is a Diversion Podcasts
Speaker 1: original series in association with I Heart Radio. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen into your favorite shows.